Mountain View, Missouri, Makes National News

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Mountain View, Missouri, is a small town in south central Missouri that has neither a mountain nor a view of one, but it is a very nice community nonetheless.  I lived in Mountain View during the late 1970's and early 1980's where I taught history to the local high school students and later even became that school's principal for a couple of years.   My youngest son was born at the local hospital in Mountain View, and my other two children began school there.  I have many fond memories of the time I spent in Mountain View.

A few days ago one of my former students, a man who is now a retired state employee, sent me a news story over the internet about the town that he and I both once called home.   The story was from the "New York Post" and was a weird tale of a 48-year-old female resident of the community who had just been discovered to have stolen her 22-year-old daughter's identity and enrolled in college as the younger woman.

The article in the "Post" made it sound like a vanity issue, an older woman wanting to believe that she could pass for someone less than half her age, and that she might have also been focused on socializing with young college males, but other news sources with less of a sensational bent than the "New York Post" indicated that her motivation for stealing her daughter's identity might have been more pecuniary in nature.  The impostor managed to obtain $9,400 in federal student loans, $5,920 in Pell Grants, $337 worth of college textbooks, and nearly two thousand dollars in finance charges.

After stealing the identity of her daughter, the older woman successfully applied for a social security card in her daughter's name, then a Missouri driver's license, and finally was able to enroll at the local branch of Southwest Baptist University where she racked up major bills as a student receiving financial aid.  She has been charged with social security fraud and faces up to five years in prison.  The woman said that she is a past victim of domestic abuse and was using the subterfuge to evade her past.  She has been ordered to repay the university more than $17,000 and she also has to make restitution to her daughter.

The incredulous local police chief noted to NYC's other news rag, "The New York Times," that not only had the mother ruined her daughter's credit, she had also successfully navigated the small branch of the religious university for two years while pretending to be a much younger person than she actually was, and she had acquired a couple of college boyfriends whom she managed to fool as well.

And while it is personally disturbing for me to learn that I have former high school students who have already completed work careers and retired, it is somewhat of a comfort to know that a little town of which I am very fond can still occasionally make the national news!