Moore saves biggest challenge for last

"Moving targets are hard to hit." He may have moved around a lot, but Ralph Moore said he couldn't be happier with where he ended up. Moore said the time was right as he announced to the school board Monday night this year will be his seventh and last as superintendent of the Monroeville Local Schools. "I'm going to finish out this year. I am going to get our district through this situation ... I wouldn't want to leave this on anybody's plate. "I want to give our board as much time as possible. I think it is timely to let the community know. We have some issues coming up. The only agenda I have is to take the best care of our students and district as best as possible. "We want to create as many opportunities as we can for our kids." Moore graduated in 1973 from Bucyrus High School and has made a number of stops in his career. After graduating from West Liberty State University in West Virginia, he started his teaching career at his alma mater. "I was a December graduate in 1979 so the second half of the year I spend substitute teaching as an industrial arts teacher in Bucyrus," Moore said. "Mac Morrison hired me at Colonel Crawford in August of 1980. I was at Crawford for a number of years then went to Galion High School as a classroom teacher and assistant teacher for about 13 years." Other stops followed: Athletic director and assistant principal at Ontario High School; Principal at Clear Fork High School; Principal at Port Clinton High School; and then three years as a consultant for the Ohio Department of Education. Moore was then hired as Monroeville superintendent, but he had to resign after just a few weeks when his son suffered an athletic career-ending surgery. "It took about seven different surgeries to save his leg," Moore said. "I just couldn't take something like this on with my son." After caring for his son, Monroeville came back and asked Moore to reapply a second time. "I just finished the sixth year and will start my seventh and final year this fall," Moore said. There have been some tough times at Monroeville, but Moore makes no excuses. "The buck stops with us," Moore said. "Go back to Harry Truman. ... Harry Truman had a sign on his desk 'The Buck Stops Here.' Don't make any excuses. You have to look in the mirror and know you did the best you could and live with the outcome." The last six months have been like nothing Moore has seen in his first 40 years in education. "For me, it's just been another challenge in a long list of challenges in my career," he said. "I went through 9-11 as a high school principal. A lot of personal situations and financial distress. "That just goes with the business. You survive in this business 40-plus years and you don't want to say you have seen everything. This has been another in a long list of challenges but this has been the toughest. "Do the best we could with what we knew at the time and live it." Moore said he is proud of his time in Monroeville and couldn't have done it alone. "This has been a tremendous experience for me. You will be judged as time goes by. Monroeville students are second to none. Really proud of what we have done over the last five years. We worked hard with our staff and we were prepared for online learning when we needed it. "My treasurer, Stephanie Hanna, started a few months after I did. The first thing we inherited was the state performance audit. Our financial issues were much worse than what we thought they were when we took the jobs. We are in very strong financial ground right now. We have three renewal levies coming on, the first is in November for permanent improvement. "If our district will stay afloat we need to pass those three renewals." It's been quite a career for Moore. He was on an undefeated football team at Bucyrus as a sophomore that finished second in the state. He played a year of college football at West Liberty State University. He worked hard and struggled with his family just to get enough money for college. He has seen it and done it. But with this pandemic still very much alive, Moore's final year in education really will be one to remember. Joe Centers is Reflector managing editor. He can be reached at jcenters@norwalkreflector.com.