The student's word search is about finding geographical and historical terms. Based on the given clues and the philosophy that more obvious and significant words tend to escape observation, the answer that links an officer with the Rocky Mountains and Mexico would be correct, which is option D.
The game you're describing is similar to a word search, where clues relate to geographic locations, historical events, and other notable subjects. When considering the clues provided, such as Pikes Peak, Minnesota, Rocky Mountains, Colorado, Louisiana, desert farming, and Battle of York, as well as the possible inclusions of military terms like officer and countries like Mexico, the task is to find these words that are key to the word search. Given the provided options, we can ascertain that the correct answer would involve location names that are significant and large enough to stand out, much like the larger signs mentioned in the quote provided. Using this approach and the clues, the correct answer to match with officer would be locations crucial to U.S. history and geography. The most fitting locations from the clues would be the Rocky Mountains and Mexico, which makes option D. Officer, Rocky, Mexico the correct selection.