Outstanding Service Award – Dec. 2003
Retired Colonel Robert K. Moore receives the Award for Outstanding Service as Leader of the Survivors Assistance Committee in Florida December 14, 2003. Standing at left is his wife, Ryanna.
Colonel Moore was a direct descendant of Moses Moore, one of the early pioneers and settlers of Pocahontas County. He was born February 1, 1922 and raised in Huntersville, the youngest of five children of Elihu H. and Lola Kate McElwee Moore.
Robert attended the two-room elementary school in Huntersville and graduated from Marlinton High School in 1939. During that time, he helped with planting the pine grove in Huntersville behind the school.
He was drafted into the United States Army in 1942 and received a Second Lieutenant’s Commission in 1943. He attended flight training and later flew an observation plane in Europe with the 10th Armored Division during World War II. After the war he married Ryanna McClure, a Red Cross volunteer, in Heidelberg, Germany. Their daughter, Marianne, was born in 1951. Robert pursued the Army as a career and served in various Army posts in Aberdeen, Maryland, St. Louis, Missouri, Armed Forces Far East, Korea, Japan, and Washington, D.C. In 1962 he attended the Army War College in Pennsylvania leading to an assignment as Commander of an Aviation Group in Germany and was promoted to Colonel. His last military assignment was Executive Officer to the Assistant Secretary of the Army in the Pentagon, and he retired in 1969 after 27 years of military service. He received the Distinguished Service Medal for his achievements.
Col. Moore was Plant Manager for The Bendix Corp. at Lewisburg until 1974, then Business Manager at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank from 1974 to 1983. During that time the Moores built their home on Knapps Creek in Minnehaha Springs and named it “Mill Run.” They moved to Florida in 1988 where he served as a member of the Retired Officers Association, Cape Canaveral Chapter and Survivors Assistance Organization at IRCC.
Col. Robert K. Moore died in Melbourne, Florida May 16, 2007 at the age of 85 and was laid to rest at the Mountain View Mausoleum in Marlinton, West Virginia. Ryanna Moore followed her husband in death on April 9, 2009. Daughter Marianne Palumbo died December 15, 2010. (Preserving Pocahontas Archives, Courtesy of Kay Beverage; ID: PHP000727)
Access the “Preserving Pocahontas” Digital Library at www.pocahontaspreservation.org or www.preservingpocahontas.org
If you have photographs or documents to be scanned for the county Historical Archive contact Preservation Officer B. J. Gudmundsson at 304-799-3989 or email info@pocahontaspreservation.org Prints of photographs from the archives are available.
