Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 20, 1995 TAG: 9511200015
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALISON FREEHLING NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG (AP) LENGTH: Medium
- On most nights, Brenda Moore goes to bed about 1 a.m. She gets up four hours later, well before her first wave of kids has to catch the 6:15 bus to school.
By 7:50, she has sent five more children off to school. Shortly after 8, the mother of 10 grabs her oversize black backpack and heads off to school herself.
Moore, 41, is a senior at the College of William and Mary and scheduled to graduate next month with a degree in art history. The Newport News resident has a 3.8 grade-point average out of a possible 4.0 and will be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's most prestigious academic honor society, in December.
``It's a big balancing act, doing the mom thing and the school thing,'' Moore says. ``I guess the main thing is sleep. As in, I don't get any.''
Moore's children, half of whom are adopted, range in age from 8 to 23. Her husband, Terry, is a contractor whose work often takes him out of town.
``Luckily, my kids are very autonomous,'' Moore says. ``And I think it's good for them to see me working hard. They see how important that is. I don't usually have to tell them to do their own homework.''
The seven children living at home are divided into teams for household chores. They eat lunch at school, unless they decide they don't like what's on the menu - in which case they make their own sandwiches.
Various after-school programs keep the children occupied until their mother gets home about 6 p.m. Dinner falls anywhere between 6 and 8:30, and the children are in bed - with school clothes for the next day already laid out - by 10:30.
That's when Moore starts her own homework - this semester for classes in German, computer science, medieval history and an honors thesis class in art history.
Getting a college diploma is a longtime dream for Brenda Moore, who married Terry when she was 17 and a junior at Warwick High School. She graduated from Warwick in 1972.
``I thought, at some point in time as a mother I'll be out of a job,'' she says. ``I wanted to start working in a direction that would make me feel fulfilled.''
Seven years ago, Moore began taking night classes at Thomas Nelson Community College. In 1993, she graduated as class valedictorian with an associate's degree in liberal arts.
Moore earned a full scholarship to William and Mary two years ago.
``She's very dedicated,'' says Barbara Watkinson, an art history professor and Moore's adviser on her honors thesis about a 13th-century abbey in Belgium. ``She shows the younger students what it's all about.''
Moore, who often commiserates about homework with her 20-year-old son, Daniel - a student at James Madison University - says she gets along well with her younger classmates. ``I was worried at first that there was no one else with gray hair,'' Moore says. ``But I have great relations with the people here, even though sometimes they look at me like I'm their mother or their Aunt Gertrude.''
After she graduates, Moore says she hopes to get a job working at an area museum. She also is considering graduate school.
``That is,'' she says, ``if I don't lose my mind first.''
by CNB