By Craig Rolfe
Like no doubt every member of the Vicksburg-Schoolcraft community who knew anything about Sue Moore, I was initially consumed by a sense of disbelief, and perhaps denial, when I heard of her death. How could this be so, I questioned? How could this epitome of the Vicksburg Energizer Bunny on Steroids have so suddenly just left us?
Having had a few weeks now to reflect on Sue, and my experiences with her, I’ve finally been able to compose a few of my thoughts and actually write them down for Kathy Forsythe to share with others, if she wishes to do so. Here goes:
Sue the Journalist. I likely first became aware of this Sue on a professional level when Sue was covering area township meetings at which I was serving as legal counsel. I remember being quite taken aback the first time Sue sent me her actual draft copy for an article and requested I offer any pertinent suggestions or corrections. After first resisting this invitation, and thinking “Gee, Sue, isn’t this YOUR job”, I eventually realized this was merely part of Sue’s determination to “get the story right”. Upon accepting the strive for perfection as her motivation for allowing the subject of a story to check her work before the story was buttoned-up for publication, it was easy to work with Sue the Journalist. More recently she might ask me to actually write the copy for an article on something involving The Big Red Machine, which I would happily do, but with some apprehensions about HER editing of MY story!
Sue the Photographer. You may initially think this is just a variation of Sue the Journalist; but I beg to differ, especially after Sue discovered that new-fangled invention — DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY! I dare say that new technology was made for Sue. I would often watch her at local athletic, band, or other events, such as Showboat rehearsals (yes, I mean ShowBOAT), and wonder, sometimes aloud: “Geez, Sue, how the heck how many pictures do you need to take of the same thing?” Of course, in reality all of her seemingly endless clicking of that shutter button captured many often slightly different shots, from which she would deliberately and thoughtfully choose just the “right” photo to visually complement the narrative part of her SCN story.
Sue the Historian. I only came to know this Sue quite recently, in the context of the efforts of the Vicksburg Historical Society to reach a new arrangement with the Village to continuing operating and administering the Historic Village. As part of those efforts Sue produced an extremely detailed roster of all the various buildings, structures, and railroad rolling stock the Society has either acquired or constructed, complete with dates, exact itemized costs incurred by the Society, and the history of the original historical buildings the Society brought to the Historic Village as part of its mission to preserve and celebrate the history of our community. Sue the Historian had an incredible breadth and depth of knowledge about the Vicksburg area, which we can now only hope was sufficiently recorded so as to be perpetuated for the benefit of all of us alive now and those who will join this community years from now.Lastly,
Sue the Vicksburger (yes, that IS a real word). In my lifetime the Vicksburg area community has been fortunate to have enjoyed the talents, energy, and special gifts contributed by several individuals whose love for this community was expressed in so many ways. For Sue, as with Mercer Munn before her, Vicksburg was indeed “the center of the universe”. However, in so many respects Sue Moore was the very CENTER of that universe. Her life is a shining example of how much of a difference one individual can make in the history of a community, and the lives of the people comprising that community, through commitment, dedication, skill, and an abiding endless love for what they do.
Sue may have had some sense of her contributions to this community, through the founding of and operation of the South County News, and otherwise, but I lament the utter loss of the opportunity for this entire community to actually TELL HER just how beloved she was. So, in closing, I challenge each of you to look around and see the other individuals who always seem to be “the doers” in our community, and thank them — while you can. You know who they are. Better yet, honor Sue by offering to dig in and help do the things that need to be done.