www.mycnews.com • Community News – St. Louis County • May 23, 2018
Second annual Valley of Flowers Pickleball Tournament crowns champions The city of Florissant hosted its second annual Valley of Flowers Pickleball Tournament on May 5. There were a total of seven teams that participated at the Eagan Center gymnasium. This was a coed random draw event that ended with Janet Bellm (left) and Peggy Dierker crowned as champions.
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Photo courtesy city of Florissant
Lucas Crossing teacher uses education and medicine to make a difference in community As a child, Colette Taylor-Moore saw a future in that over two-thirds of the people you see in this medicine, bringing new life into the world as an class won’t make it through.’” OB-GYN physician. She began her undergraduate Taken aback by his comment, Taylor-Moore was studies in biology/pre-med at the University determined to prove him wrong. She completed of Missouri at Columbia before transferring to the program and is now approaching her third DePaul University in Chicago. year working evenings (and some weekends) as Her biology professor at DePaul recommended a board-certified E.M.T. She says organization that she apply for the Health and time management are Careers Enhancement For key to balancing both careers. Minorities (HCEM) internship Whether it’s inside the at Case Western Reserve classroom or an ambulance, University, a top-ranked Taylor-Moore says she’s private research university in prepared to meet any challenge Cleveland, Ohio. head-on. The program gave participants Any mention of a student an opportunity to prepare for the not feeling well or a fall on the Medical College Admission Test playground, she immediately (MCAT) and an opportunity to checks for high temperatures shadow medical doctors. and broken arms. Other times, “But, life has a way of turning she takes a motherly nurturing out the way it does,” said TaylorPhoto courtesy Normandy Schools Collaborative approach with students. This Moore, a first-grade teacher Colette Taylor-Moore is an E.M.T. and Lucas school year, she says that two at Lucas Crossing Elementary Crossing Elementary Teacher. students each lost a loved one. Complex. “I stayed at DePaul “Sometimes they need an until I became pregnant with my first child.” extra hug,” said Taylor-Moore, a mother of two. Taylor-Moore returned home and enrolled “You have no idea what the situation is until you at Harris-Stowe State College (now Harris- get into the trenches.” Stowe State University). There, the St. Louis Ambulance calls Taylor-Moore responds to native eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in range from routine transfers to extreme cases education and a master’s degree in education from like one she said she’ll never forget – the suicide Lindenwood University. She had served more call of a 16-year-old boy. His parents reported than 20 years as an elementary educator when she that they had no previous knowledge of him decided to return to school. being distraught and to find him in that state was “I had an undying need to test the waters indescribable. in medicine,” she said. “So, I figured I would “At the time, my own son was 16,” she said. “You try being an Emergency Medical Technician never know what children are going through. My (E.M.T.) to see if medicine was something I was heart was torn as a teacher and a parent.” still interested in.” Despite the emotional tolls and physical She was teaching in the Ferguson-Florissant demands of her two careers, Taylor-Moore says School District when she took a year off to focus it’s rewarding making a difference in the lives of on her E.M.T. studies at St. Louis Community so many. College at Forest Park. It was during her first class “I’m truly blessed to have both careers,” she that her professor made a dire prediction. said. “Wherever I’m needed to help, that’s what “He said, ‘Look around you. I guarantee you I want to do.”
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