Editor’s note: This article is part of a KSAT 12 special project Remembering the Victims of the Robb Elementary School.
You could say Maite Rodriguez, 10, was wise beyond her years.
Her mother, Ana Rodriguez, said Maite was driven. She knew from the time she was in kindergarten that she wanted to be a marine biologist. In an interview with the Associated Press, Rodriguez said her daughter was set on attending Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for college.
“She was smart. She was ambitious,” said Destiny Esquivel, Maite’s cousin.
The 10-year-old was also an environmentalist. She wore green high-top Converse sneakers with a heart she had hand-drawn on the right toe. To Maite, it symbolized her love for nature.