PANAMA CITY — At a time when parents in the local black community vied for equal education for their children, Roberta Moore owned her own private school.
In the 1960s, students at Moore’s Kindergarten showed up for school at the Christian Band of Benevolence Church, an old church on Mercedes Avenue in Glenwood. Unaware of the times, according to Greg Dossie, kids were kids, but Moore had set out to educate who she could and dedicated her life to the cause of education.
“She was a good teacher,” said Dossie, Moore’s first cousin and former student. “She loved what she was doing.”
Moore died Aug. 16. She was a retired Bay District Schools educator of 42 years, a former curator at the African American Cultural Center (AACC) and a dedicated community advocate. Her funeral will be Saturday at 11 a.m. at Kingdom Agenda International Ministry, 5803 E. U.S. 98.
sign Roberta Moore’s obituary guestbook
“The one thing I can remember the most is she always told me if I dedicate to something, dedicate 110 percent until the job is done,” said Moore’s only child, 42-year-old Marsha Gonzalez-Weaver. “And that’s how she lived her life.”
Besides owning, for a time, her own kindergarten school and dedicating more than four decades to public education at Bay District Schools, Moore had devoted much of her time to serving in community-based organizations, such as the Democratic Women’s Organization and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“She was very considerate as a community person,” said Mathew Shack, local author and playwright who worked with Moore at the AACC while she was the curator.
Moore’s character — “dedicated, optimistic and loving” — will burn as a beacon in the lives of all the people she touched while living, Gonzalez-Weaver said.
Her death “is a celebration in memory of her,” Gonzalez-Weaver added. “It’s not meant to be sad; it’s just a celebration of her and everybody she touched.”
The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the NAACP, Democratic Women’s Organization or time be donated to tutoring a child.
ROBERTA MOORE’S FUNERAL ARRANGMENTS
What: Funeral and repast for former curator at the African American Cultural Center and 42-year Bay school district educator Roberta Dossie Moore
When: Saturday at 11 a.m., repast following
Where: Kingdom Agenda International Ministry, 5803 E. U.S. 98; repast to be held at Glenwood Community Center, 722 E. Ninth Court
Details: Richardson’s Family Funeral Care, 850-215-7188
