The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
Virginia Moore using her newfound celebrity to help deaf, hard of hearing
While walking through the rotunda in the Kentucky Capitol, Virginia Moore rubbed the boot of the bronze Abraham Lincoln statue.
She did it subconsciously, out of habit, she said.
It wasn’t always that way, though. Moore, the executive director of the Kentucky Commission of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, began embracing the tradition after rioters gathered outside the state Capitol around Memorial Day last year to protest Gov. Andy Beshear’s COVID-19 mandates.
“I have to be honest, I was scared to death,” she said. “They were beating on the windows. There was just so much animosity and hate and fear, and it just was unnecessary and I could not understand it. … I thought to myself, where’s the kindness?”
But plenty of love was extended to Moore. Her work interpreting Beshear’s daily COVID briefings into sign language made her a celebrity. A bobblehead of her emerged, people began recognizing her at the grocery and there was an outpouring of support when she had a health issue.
“Being recognized is a very interesting thing,” she said in June. “I’m walking through Kroger and people are screaming, ‘Hey Virginia,’ and I turn around and I don’t know a soul. But they know my name.”
Moore said she’s glad the newfound attention helped turn a lens to the needs of the state’s 700,000 deaf and hard of hearing people.
Moore was born to deaf parents, and two of her four siblings are deaf, so her first language was American Sign Language, she said.
As a student at Michigan State University, she considered criminology and made money from photography, but eventually majored in sociology and psychology.
Her first job out of school was as a career evaluator, helping other people find things that interested them.
“I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I was helping other people,” she said.
From there, she began working with the deaf community as a counselor and was later hired at the commission, where she has served as an interpretive coordinator, executive staff adviser, interpreter and now executive director.
In the past, the commission would fight to be a presence at the governor’s press briefings but was often told things like “there’s not room for you” and “now’s not a good time to bring up an interpreter,” Moore said.
But now agencies across the state, such as police, schools and emergency management, have begun collaborating with the commission to ensure those needs are met, she said.
Virginia Moore, executive director of the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing signs “I Love You.”
Kentucky Commission of Deaf and Hard of Hearing
The Kentucky Commission of Deaf and Hard of Hearing provides resources including ways for parents to effectively communicate with their children who are deaf and assistance connecting senior citizens with programs that allow them to stay in their homes.
The commission has organized the DeaFestival every other year since 1995. The daylong, free event has performances, such as theater and comedy shows, games and educational sessions. The festival — which draws about 10,000 people from Kentucky and beyond — was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it will return to Danville, Kentucky, in 2022.
Visit https://www.kcdhh.ky.gov/ for more information.
Moore has made it her mission to “bridge the gap between the two languages to the best of my ability,” she said.
Her advice to the hearing community when trying to communicate with someone who is deaf or hard of hearing is to not be afraid to gesture, write out what you’re trying to say and speak to the person directly, rather than turning to someone else and saying, “tell him” or “tell her,” Moore said.
“There are so many different ways to communicate,” she said. “You just have to be willing to try, and then you will find that person to be more open to working with you.”
In late 2020, Moore was noticeably absent from several of Beshear’s coronavirus pressers. On Oct. 8, she announced she had been diagnosed with uterine cancer and was set to have a hysterectomy.
She returned to her post Nov. 30, after she previously announced the doctors believed they removed all the cancer and said she was doing “very well.”
During that journey, Moore received enough cards — from Kentucky, all the way to Ireland — to fill a basket, a bin and two shoeboxes. People sent her handmade prayer blankets. One woman wrote her a five-page letter detailing her own bout with cancer.
“Well, now you’re going to get me a little emotional because the outpouring — it was just absolutely shocking,” she said.
Moore also praised the attentiveness of her doctors at the University of Louisville’s Brown Cancer Center and their early detection of the cancer.
She had experienced the kindness she had been hoping to see in Kentucky, and it was “overwhelming,” she said.