Arritt Funeral Home

Funeral services will be held Saturday afternoon at Covington High School for an administrative assistant whom students called Mama D.Dionne Jefferson Moore collapsed Nov. 14 just before the start of Covington’s first-round football playoff game at Northwood High School in Saltville. A medical helicopter landed on the 50-yard line to take Moore to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, but she died the next day of complications from an aneurysm.Moore was the wife of assistant football coach Keith Moore Sr., the mother of four children, grandmother of two, and sister of seven siblings. She was 45 years old.“She definitely loved all kids. All the kids here would call her Mama D,” said her sister-in-law Kim Jefferson, who worked with her at Covington High School. “She was a loving person and would do anything for anybody at any time.”Additional counselors were brought into the school during the week.“She was kind of the glue that held everything together,” said Covington girls basketball coach Mark Pifer. Pifer coached the Moore’s daughter, Sa’Mone, who was the cornerstone of the high school program and is now a freshman at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg.“I just talked with her on Friday morning. She said she was making plans to go to the football game and then go to Ohio on Saturday to watch Sa’Mone play her first college game,” Pifer said.Instead, Sa’Mone Moore left Ohio for Charlottesville. She played her first game Wednesday in Harrisonburg with about 75 people from Covington in attendance.“She hit her first two shots for three points,” Pifer said.The university’s website story reports: “After a slow opening five minutes, Eastern Mennonite caught fire and roasted the nets at a 47.6 percent shooting clip, while dominating the boards at 54-28.“Behind some hot outside shooting, the visiting Spartans skipped to a 10-3 lead. Freshman Sa’Mone Moore (Covington, Va./Covington), appearing in her first collegiate game, came off the bench and sparked the Royals with back-to-back threes. The ... (Roanoke Times)

MEADOW BRIDGE — “We won’t give up and we will not give in,” said Elizabeth Hamlin, representing the Meadow Bridge High School Local School Improvement Council Tuesday during a school closure hearing.Hamlin said the council has been “consistent and vocal” about its objections to closure and have made requests for repairs and requests for community members to make repairs, but those requests have been denied or ignored.“Now those are cited against our school as deficiencies or reasons to close us,” she said.“We will not give in to this persistent drive to close our school,” she added. “(It is your) objective to sacrifice our school and community so you can improve your community.”Meadow Bridge High students in grades 9-12 are slated to attend Greenbrier West or Midland Trail high schools.Like many of the 16 speakers Tuesday, Hamlin asked if Greenbrier County would be required to accept Fayette’s “refugee students” and what rights those taxpaying parents would have in other counties.Fayette Superintendent Terry George and members of the central office staff answered questions asked after the 5 minutes allotted per speaker.Many of their answers were met with heckles and shouts of “Leave us alone,” “Liar” and “Answer the question” from some of the more than 150 in attendance who were not satisfied with the thoroughness or validity of the answers given from the central office.Answering Hamlin, George said other counties have agreed to work with Fayette regarding accepting students, but no county could be forced or compelled to accept Fayette County students. Likewise, no parent is forced to send their students out of county. Buses will be provided to transport students who want to attend to Midland Trail High.Although busing estimates from outlying communities to Midland Trail or Oak Hill were initially longer than the state recommended hour-long bus ride, Deputy Superintendent Gary Hough said those bus routes have been revised, adding more buses and trips, and the longest ride is now expected to be 58 minutes.Deferred main... (Beckley Register-Herald)