By Jill Fankhauser
Alaska Star

For someone who doesn’t like to be the center of attention, Venita Moore is doing well in the spotlight.

Moore, the administrative assistant at Eagle Academy Charter School, is one of three winners of the Anchorage School District’s Denali Award. The bi-annual award is presented to employees who nominate colleagues for going above and beyond their regular duty.

Venita Moore, winner of the Anchorage School District's Denali Awards, stands by a favorite American flag quilt in the lobby of Eagle Academy Charter School. Star Photo by Jill Fankhauser

“I was really surprised. I was really glad she told me at home too because being the center of attention is really uncomfortable for me,” Moore said. “I’m used to working in the background.”

Nominations for Moore include comments such as she’s a “Jack of all trades and a master of all,” and “She’s a friendly face with kind words and a genuine interest in people every single day.”

Moore can usually be found greeting folks who enter the school from her front desk. But she’s much more than someone who welcomes students, parents and visitors.

If she’s not behind her desk, Moore might be tending to a child with a bloody nose or a bump on the head.

“I’m a mom and a grandma and have lots of experience,” she said.

Or she might be mopping up the floor or de-icing sidewalks.

She doesn’t mind doing any of it - she finds pleasure in helping the Academy run smoothly.

“Venita is an octopus … when I come in I see her going all over the place,” one coworker wrote.

Moore started working at the Academy in July 2006, during the school’s second year of operation. She left an office job in an office job to work in what she calls a friendly and close-knit environment.

Moore’s job includes answering phones, updating school records, enrolling students, helping with fundraisers and some of the duties unique to a charter school, such as finding vendors to fix things instead of relying on the district’s maintenance crew.

“I have a lot of distractions,” Moore said. “But I wouldn’t want to sit still all day either.”

The best part of her job is the students and families that are part of EACS, she said.

Charter schools typically rely on parents to be highly involved in school activities. EACS requires each family to volunteer 16 hours each school year - something they’d probably be doing anyway, Moore said, just because they care so much about the school. For example, quite a few parents often offer to help Moore do things like copy registration packets or parent handbooks, so she can focus on registering students. She appreciates all the help she gets.

“There’s just so much stuff to do,” Moore said. “I love the energy of the people that you work with that deal with families and children.”

Family is an essential part of Moore’s life.

Moore has been in Chugiak since she was a toddler. Her parents moved to the area in 1957 and homesteaded in Peters Creek. After going Outside for college, she moved back to Peters Creek and married Oliver Moore, her husband of 34 years. They moved to Bear Mountain, not far from her first Peters Creek home and raised three daughters, all of whom continue to live in Chugiak-Eagle River.

On Sundays, Moore can be found teaching Sunday school to little ones at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Chugiak. If she’s not at school or church, she’s with her grandchildren Hannah Farr, 5, and Owen Farr, 4. The family likes to cook; she often bakes things like sugar cookies shaped like moose or turkeys with her grandchildren.

Next year, Hannah will be a kindergartener at EACS - something grandma is looking forward to.

“One of my favorite days of the new school year is when our kindergarteners walk through the door,” Moore said.

During her summer break Moore plans to do more cooking with her grandkids in her newly renovated kitchen and take lots of family camping trips. In August, she’ll be back at school ready for the next round of students and chaos - a job she looks forward to coming back to and where her peers think she is a joy to be around.

“Bottom line: Venita is on top of it,” a colleague wrote. “Venita deserves the Denali Award because she is a class act.”

Reach the reporter at jillfankhauser.@alaskastar.com.

This article published in The Alaska Star on Thursday, June 4, 2009.