BECKY PEPPER-JACKSON slides her toes into her running shoes as the sun sets behind the Appalachian Mountains. She likes to run at the end of the day, when the summer heat has broken and she's done with her chores. The 11-year-old and her family live on three acres of land outside Bridgeport, West Virginia, a town with fewer than 10,000 people about halfway between Charleston, the state's capital, and Pittsburgh.
Every morning, Becky has to let the chickens out and fill up the water bucket. "Which half the time ends in a hose fight, by the way," Becky's mother, Heather, says.