NANCY CAROL MOOERS ~ Class of 1952
April 7, 1934 - July 31, 2008

Nancy Mooers - 1952

Nancy Mooers - recent

Nancy C. Mooers Of Kent, WA lived a wonderful love-filled life that ended on Thursday, July 31, 2008. Nancy was born on April 7, 1934 in Grand Rapids, MN.

She moved with her sister Marilyn to Richland at 12 years of age. Nancy graduated from Columbia High School in 1952 as the salutatorian and attended Whitman College, graduating as a Phi Beta Kappa. Nancy was also an active life-long member of her sorority, Delta Gamma

She received a master's degree from the University of Oregon in Education and was an educator for more than 45 years. Her first teaching jobs were in Portland, OR and then in Concord, CA. In 1960 she got the opportunity to teach for dependents of the US Army in Manheim, Germany for 2 years. Returning from Germany, she decided to try something a little different and was hired as an Assistant Personnel Manager at Swedish Hospital in Seattle.

Nancy loved to travel and wanted to return to a teaching schedule that would provide more flexibility to pursue her life-long passion for new experiences in new places. In 1963 she started her career with the Highline School District. It was interrupted by the unexpected death of her father in Richland. She returned to Richland for 5 years and continued her teaching career in Richland. As luck would have it, one of her life-long sister friends offered Nancy an opportunity to return to Seattle as a Reading Specialist with the Highline School District where she remained until she retired.

She took the chance to change venues and returned to the Seattle area. Nancy became a Language Arts Consultant for the Highline School District. Her next post was a job that we all know that she loved. She was a principal for Hilltop Elementary School and Madrona Elementary School. Nancy loved kids... and kids of all ages loved Nancy. Nancy had a keen sense of humor and a goofy streak that children and adults of all ages picked up on and were drawn to. If a student got sent to the principal's office at one of her schools, they got to sign into her office selecting from a potato shaped pen, a fish shaped pen or a tube of toothpaste shaped pen. She said it cut the tension and made the kids relax. That is just how she was - always taking the opportunity to teach and learn and laughing while she did it. Nancy retired in 1994 from the Highline School District but continued to be in classroom as a Supervisor of Student Teachers through Western Washington University's program.

Nancy loved to travel all of her life and traveled extensively to most of the world's continents. Some of her favorite destinations were Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Hawaii with Paris as her favorite place to visit. For each of us, she was more than a teacher, principal, friend, sister or aunt. Nancy was a unique light that helped us to laugh more than we thought we could, to experience life that we might never try, and to learn to play the nose flute for fear that we might be the only ones in the family that couldn't play it. She danced to her own music, rooted for teams that she knew others would not, kept calm during tense moments of picking out wedding invitations, and never passed on an opportunity to share in life's little delights. Nancy was loving, caring, sharing, giving, happy and a host of other adjectives that just don't seem to give the full picture.

Aptly, her last name never changed....Mooers....because she could never get enough. She left us wanting More!

Nancy's family included her sisters, Marilyn Mooers Dame ('56) and Pat Burkman, brother Dr. William Weston ('56), 8 nieces, 6 nephews, 6 grandnieces, 3 grandnephews, her Birthday Buddy grandnephew, students she touched, teachers she guided and a host of friends that will miss her forever.

Remembrances can be sent to the Madrona Elementary School Library at 20301 32nd Avenue South, Seatac, WA 98198.

Published in print from 8/6/2008 - 8/10/2008

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