Annotations for People: Begel-deborah

Thirteen-year-old Miguel Atencio of Chama, New Mexico, beats his father in chess almost every game. He began playing when he was nine. Two years later, he joined the high-school chess team. That's when someone from Celebrate Youth, a six-year-old mentorship program in New Mexico, spotted the talented youngster and invited him to work more seriously on his game. This year, Miguel won the state middle-school chess championship.

Miguel Atencio is both highly motivated and very talented. These are the characteristics Celebrate Youth director, Paquita Hernández, looks for in students. She also pursues teenagers who are equally talented but living in what Hernández describes as economic and social poverty.

The adult mentor meets with the student once a week for six months. Each student develops a project, perhaps a dance, a piece of sculpture, a science or math project, an essay or poem, or a piece of music.

Ninth grader Alyssa Montoya works with Mary Agnes Anderson of Española as her mentor. Anderson has mentored three students so far.

Other mentors have seen more impressive changes as a result of the program. Paquita Hernández tells the story of one talented teenager who is likely to follow two older brothers into drugs and depression. After delving into a science research project for two years in the Celebrate Youth program, he entered college and now plans to become a doctor. Success stories like these, Hernández says, are less likely to happen within the current school system.

Those involved in Celebrate Youth say the goal is to promote excellence over mediocrity. Achievement is measured against one's own abilities rather than in competition with others. This is the attitude Miguel Atencio takes.

These days, Miguel is sharpening his chess skills to prepare for the annual Celebrate Youth Festival in June. Nearly 400 students, including 30 chess players like Miguel, will gather for three days at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, which co-sponsors the program. There, they'll perform their dances, hang their paintings, and display their research projects that demonstrate the skills they've worked so hard to develop.

For Latino USA, this is Debra Beagle in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico.

Seated on a turquoise wooden bench on the front porch of the old Adobe Mercantile Building in Los Ojos, New Mexico. Joanna Terrazas waves at passing friends.

A few paces down the street. Retired Marine Elipio Mercure is standing outside Pastores feed and general store.

Loyola Archuleta, the manager of the store, explains that most Chama Valley locals practice three waves, a kind of scale of friendliness.

All the history of a family, a community, a friendship are revealed in a wave.

John Nichols, author of the Milagro Bean Field War, describes his return to Taos after a long trip in his book, If Mountains Die. "When I raised my hand in greeting to a car driven by a stranger", he writes "and received a salutation in return, I knew I had a arrived to a place worth trying to call home". Pedro Archuleta of Tierra Amarillo, or TA as the locals call it, couldn't agree more.

For Latino USA. This is Deborah Begel.