Published: June 14, 2008 09:50 pm            

AT RANDOM: Mance Park student active in school, community

Thirteen-year-old Everrett Moore has upped the ante for future eighth-graders at Mance Park Middle School.

With the help of a supportive family and an even stronger sense of determination, Moore has made an impression that will follow him for years to come.

“I wish I had a million of him,” said Beth Burt, Mance Park principal. “He’s made an awesome impression on me. He’s so mature beyond his years and is very well respected by his peers, which is a hard combination to have.”

Moore’s wide-ranging interests and activities are required by the school or his parents, but they have earned him recognition from school officials and his peers.

He took all four pre-advanced placement classes this past school year; he was the fullback for the football team; he served as president of the Student Council; and he was a member of the Park Players — the school’s acting group — and Park Pride.

Moore’s accomplishments as a seventh-grader also earned him a nomination Huntsville’s Promise Outstanding Student of the Year.

He was a finalist for the award, but he did not win.

“It seems like he’s involved in everything,” Burt said.

Moore also took the Duke TIP (Talent Identification Program) test in January 2008. He was recognized for his high marks in May at a ceremony at Texas A&M University.

“It was a really good experience for me, because when I take it again in high school, oh, I’ll definitely do better.”

As a middle school students, one of Everrett’s biggest achievements was serving as a member of a committee to study the Huntsville Independent School District’s standardized dress code for fifth- through 12th-graders.

Moore said he is against the dress code because it will not solve issues the dress code is intended to resolve.

“They want us to wear these certain types of clothes to limit disciplinary issues,” he said. “One of the big issues was kids wearing their pants below their butts, and I don’t want to see that either, but I just don’t think that going straight to slacks and such is going to fix all that.

“What are you more worried about? The education, or how they dress for education? That’s one of the things I’m wondering about.”

Moore said is no need to implement a new plan, when no one really enforces the current dress code.

“With the dress code we have now, they feel like there’s too much gray area,” Moore said. “Instead of going to this standardized dress, why not just enforce the stuff we have now? Because I think it could work.”

Moore credits his parents — Gloria and Oscar Moore — with his achievements.

“My parents have had time to hear all kinds of opinions, and they are mainly my inspiration,” Everrett Moore said. “My Mom is my agent. She’s the engine right here, she’s the one who makes sure I can keep going. You know, because without her, where would I be?”

“He’s always had a mind of his own,” Gloria Moore said.

“I’m thankful that I can talk to my parents like a normal person,” Moore said. “I can actually talk to them about real issues, where as there are some family members who wouldn’t let a kid my age have my own opinions at all.”

Moore also credits a great deal of his success to his open relationship with 23-year-old brother. Eldrick, a Sam Houston State University student.

“We talk about all of these issues,” Eldrick Moore said. “I tell him my opinion and he tells me his and so we agree and disagree about different things. But it’s just like, he’s the one who has to go out and deal with it, so if he has an idea in his mind, say it and get it out there because if you get it out there than something might change for the better.”

Everrett said his role as Students Council president was “just to make Mance Park a better place and I tried to lead the way into that. But it was a group effort though — the whole team made it a better place — the whole team made the Student Council what it was.”

The projects Moore worked on for Student Council involved things such as picking up trash around the school grounds, sponsoring school programs, participating in fundraisers and setting up flyers for the school’s Valentine’s dance.

“He has always been the type of child who wanted to do, and wanted to help. But, it’s always been his way of learning,” Gloria Moore said.

“Student Council is one of the things I enjoy about school,” Everrett said. “You are a leader of the school, and you try to put different things in place to help the school.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Gloria Moore. “He has always shown leadership qualities from a very young age. Even when he was really young he always wanted to learn.

“He was the type of kid that you had to keep busy doing something or else he was bored. He played games. We did a lot of reading and learning. We had to find ways to occupy him for those reasons, because if you didn’t he got into trouble, and his brother can vouch for that!”

In his search for the best career, Moore is open to ideas from all those around him.

“One career that I’d like the most, is I want to be a author,” he said. “I just enjoy writing. My writing teacher always let you write what you want to instead of setting those little limitations.

“She did a lot of creative writing, and at the end of the school year, we actually wrote a blues song. She got a music synthesizer just for us. That was one of the things that made it such an enjoyable class. Acting, authoring and broadcasting, those are the three careers that I want to look at.”

Even with all the things he’s accomplished, and all the things he’s involved in, Everrett Moore is still a youngster.

He loves summer, and loves to sleep in, but he has a busy summer ahead.

“I’m doing the Young Writers Camp at Sam Houston State University, and then I’m also going to yearbook camp because I plan on writing for the yearbook,” Moore said. “I’m reading a couple of different things, because reading is how you get your mind to grow. Because you see things different ways when you’re reading and by seeing things different ways you become a more well-rounded person.

“What I like to do is I look at things objectively, and maybe that’s where my logic or maturity comes from.”

        

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