W. Jean Moore adds husband to scholarship endowment

by LaJuan Tallo

Senatobia, MS (11/14/2022) — Recently, retired Northwest Mississippi Community College director of Languages and Communications W. Jean Moore made the decision to add her late husband's name to her existing scholarship in order to pay tribute to both his memory and his contributions to education in Tate County and Mississippi.

The W. Jean Moore Scholarship was originally established in 2001 by Clen D. Moore in honor of his wife's long tenure and retirement from Northwest. The scholarship will now be known as the Clen D. and W. Jean Moore Endowed Scholarship.

Clen Dempsey Moore, Jr. passed away in 2015 at the age of 78. A native of Marshall County, he was the second-born of seven children. He joined the Walker Chapel CME Church at a young age, and he and his siblings were known for their beautiful singing at church and in special programs.

Moore received his Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Mississippi Industrial College in 1956 and his master's degree in physics from Fisk University in 1963. He also earned a specialist degree from The University of Mississippi in 1974.

He began his long career in education in the Tate County School District in 1956. During his career, he was a mathematics and science teacher, boys baseball coach, boys and girls basketball coach, assistant principal, principal and assistant superintendent.

Moore served as the field director for ICS Head Start before retiring in 2013. The Tate County Head Start Center, located in Coldwater was named in his honor and is now called the Clen D. Moore Head Start Center.

Over the years, Moore received numerous awards including the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies Award, the Mississippi Head Start Association Leadership Award and the North Mississippi Universal NTA-NEA Outstanding Leadership Award. Moore served as the president of the Tate County Teachers Association, as a delegate to the National Education Association, and was a member of the NAACP.

Moore and his wife were married in October 1957 and were the parents of two sons, Dr. C. Damon Moore and Robert Irving Moore. They made Coldwater their home for over 40 years and finally settled in Waterford, Mississippi on land they had purchased from Moore's family.

They attended Bates Chapel Church for many years where Moore served on the steward, lay and trustee boards and played a major role in helping to remodel the kitchen of the church. They purchased the windows and marquee for the church, and his name appears on the church's cornerstone. At the time of his death, he was a member of the Anderson Chapel CME Church, located in Holly Springs.

"I have been considering how to best honor Clen's memory and decided that this was the best way to do it. We spent so many years working in Tate County and he did so much for education there, I felt it was what was needed. We were always a team and were big proponents for education," Jean Moore said.

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