Tammy Moore found her calling when she was a young student at Bruce High School.
“I was Jane Gregory’s student helper in special ed,” Tammy said. “After I helped her, I decided I wanted to do that. I’ve stayed in it forever.”
“Forever” is 32 years, more than three decades working with disabled children still eager to learn and enjoy life.
“I just love the kids. It’s entertaining. It’s sad. You get to go in their minds,” Tammy said. “Everybody should have the mind of a child to see things through their eyes. I still love it.”
Tammy was raised in Bruce the daughter of Joe Emmitt and Carol Jean Tims. Her father worked for Bruce Company and later Memphis Hardwood.
Both her parents were born in Bruce, but one lived in town and the other out.
“Mama was considered a city girl,” Tammy said. “She lived in town and Daddy lived in the country (Mt. Moriah). He would tell stories of how they had to wait on the ice wagon. That was kind of a shocker for my mother, I think.”
Tammy’s mother was raised in a house on Hwy. 32 just a few doors down from the current Bruce fire and police departments.
“All those houses were built with that good, expensive lumber you couldn’t afford to have now,” Tammy said with a smile.
Tammy graduated from Bruce in 1982 and then went to Ole Miss where she earned a bachelors and masters in special education.
“I lived at home and worked at Bruce Middle School for Tiny Murphree,” Tammy said. “In 1989 I met Kent (a native of Waynesboro) at church. He worked at Weyerhaeuser.”
“When we married, Kent got a transfer to Amory and I took a job in Okolona to be close to Amory, but before the year was over he was transferred back to Bruce and I couldn’t get back right away so I transferred to Houlka and was there a year.”
“I got a job at Bruce Elementary after that with Mike Young, who was the absolute best principal I ever worked for. He was hard, but I learned so much from him and I learned to appreciate so much.”
Tammy would remain at Bruce Schools until 1999 when Kent was transferred to the Weyerhaeuser mill in Philadelphia.
“I came to Philadelphia kicking and screaming, acting ugly. Imagine that,” Tammy laughed. “I always thought I would be in Bruce, have my babies there and live there. But now Philadelphia is my kids’ home and I couldn’t imagine living somewhere else.”
They were indoctrinated into Philadelphia culture immediately.
“We moved here the week of the Neshoba County Fair,” Tammy said. “I had some business I thought I needed to do that Thursday and learned the entire town is shut down for the Fair.”
Kent was trying to help prove to Tammy this is going to be a great move and took her to one of the biggest churches in town that Sunday.
“There might have been 20 people there,” Tammy said. “Some elderly ladies came up to us and asked us to come back saying ‘this is Fair week.’”
Over the past 20 years the Fair has become as much a part of their lives as everyone’s around Philadelphia.
“This is all my kids know now,” Tammy said.
She told a story of taking daughter Olivia back to Calhoun and visiting the county fair at Pittsboro one year and Olivia asked “Where are all the houses everyone lives in?” Tammy had to explain that’s unique to Neshoba.
Tammy continued her work with special ed in the move to Philadelphia. She has maintained special relationships with so many of her students. Among them is Ray Charles Kelly, who she met her first year in her new school.
“He just tugged at my heart,” she said.
He would spend a lot of time at the Moore house through the years. Tammy was there for parents’ night at football. They celebrated holidays together. He became part of the family.
“I wanted my kids to experience it,” Tammy said.
“I like bad, troubled kids. The kids that many folks want to throw away, those were the ones I’ve always loved,” Tammy said. “I learned early I had a passion for it. You either love special ed or you don’t. It makes you a lot more tolerable of other people. My kids grew up with that and I think it made my kids more tolerant. That was important to me.”
“Special ed kids are so easy to love because they are just so innocent. They don’t expect anything in return. I think everybody should do a special ed stint. I know it’s not for everybody, but I wouldn’t do anything else.”
“I’ve always had a rapport with my kids. I remember in Bruce going down to Corey Armstrong’s and Rico Zinn’s. I loved those kids.”
Tammy retired from public schools in 2018 and accepted a teaching position with the Mississippi Band of Choctaws.
“It’s so different from public school because it’s like their own private school. They run it like they want to run it. We do testing, but they get accredited by the National Indian Education Association.”
“We get holidays like Nanih Waiya day, Indian day. It’s different.”
“The first year you teach you have to take a Choctaw language class and Choctaw culture and go every Monday night for 12 weeks. One was dance, customs, communities, government, and you’re tested.”
“I remember the first pow wow I went to, my gosh. They said my mouth was open the entire time. It is like a different world.”
“They love to cook. During the school day, you may get a text that someone is cooking Indian tacos and a woman will come by with a big wheelbarrow of Indian tacos, or a truckload of fried pies. I get them and they are to die for.”
Another of the benefits is the health insurance offered.
“Our insurance is out of this world. It is so good,” Tammy said. “It’s not state insurance, it’s federal insurance.”
Tammy, 54, has found more “sweet, sweet kids” to love at the reservation school and welcomes each school year as another opportunity.
“It’s another adventure,” she said. “I don’t feel old. I know I’m getting older, but this is just another adventure with good kids. I take it a year at a time.”