NATCHEZ — When people hear that Kahidreuna Jones of Natchez graduated from high school at 14 and started college at 16, they tell her she must be a genius, she said.

“But I’m just like anybody else,” Jones said.

“I don’t idolize anybody,” including herself, she said. “You know, a lot of people expect me to be the smartest thing they’ve ever seen, like I’m not a girl. I’m a T. Rex or something. But I have as much knowledge any younger adult who graduated high school. School has always been easy all my life. … I feel like whatever is being taught to me, I can learn it. I’m very easy to teach.”

Jones, who is the daughter of Corrie Washington, was homeschooled and received her diploma online from Penn Foster. After graduating, Jones said she was told she couldn’t do certain things she wanted like get a job because she wasn’t 18 yet.

“I feel like that’s kind of unfair because when you graduate high school, you should be do whatever you want,” she said.

However, Jones did not let her age stop her from registering for college last week at Copiah-Lincoln Community College’s Natchez campus, the registration office confirmed. She will be studying there alongside her older brother Sheldon Jones, who is 19 and graduated at age 17, she said.

“I kept up with him (in high school) and it was like a competition — not necessarily to see who’s the smartest but just where we encourage each other. He might say ‘I’m better at this,’ but it’s really only to make me work harder.”

They have three younger siblings who are now ages 9, 12 and 14, she said.

After high school, Jones took a two-year break both for health reasons and also to enjoy life as a reward for finishing high school early, she said.

“I feel like I graduated young to have a break, not to go right back into school,” she said. “I like to help with my younger siblings and teach them.”

She has Grave’s disease, an autoimmune disorder that caused her to have hyperthyroidism. She took sick just before her 15th birthday and stayed in the hospital for over two weeks with heart complications causing her to go into cardiac arrest.

Before her diagnosis, Jones said she had shown signs of Grave’s that she had written off.

“A lot of people with Grave’s have trouble focusing. That’s how I was before I got diagnosed with it. I had a lot of symptoms but we just looked over it at the time. But I would always learn at a fast pace. I just couldn’t really focus on one thing.”

Jones was educated in the Natchez-Adams School District until the fifth grade and became homeschooled in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I don’t knock the public school district because my kids were in public schools and had academic honors. But I found homeschooling them afforded more opportunities because wherever I go, they could go with me and could work at their own pace,” Washington said.

Washington said she feels especially blessed to see her daughter graduate young and start college at 16 after unforeseen medical issues caused her to detour from school.

“I thank God because she’s there now.  She graduated with a 3.9 grade point average,” which is almost a perfect 4.0.

Having grown up around healthcare, Jones said she wants to go to school to get her nursing license to help other people.

“I just like it. Nursing seems something I can do for the rest of my life,” she said.

Jones also enjoys cooking and traveling. When she finishes school, she wants to see the world, she said. Of all the people in her life, Jones said she looks up to her mother and her aunts, who helped her make it where she is today.

“I’m just around about a lot of smart people, so I tend to make smart decisions,” she said. “All of the women in my family are very smart.”

Jones said she tells anyone who says she is too young, “If I’m too young to be where I am, why am I here? To anybody who says I’m not going to be able to keep up … I kept up all this time.”