A celebration of life for Kentucky’s Virginia Moore is set for June 11 at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville. The service will be from 1 to 5 p.m. that day, a Sunday, in View Pointe Hall on the top level of the Ali Center at 144 N. Sixth St. in Louisville.
Moore, 61, interpreted — in American Sign Language — news of many deaths and announcements about COVID-19’s hold on Kentucky for Gov. Andy Beshear. She died Saturday.
She became popular when she started signing at many of the official COVID-19 news conferences. In addition to interpreting these news conferences, Moore taught Beshear and the public bits of ASL, her first language.
The Louisville woman’s death came “after an extended stay in the hospital for heart surgery and complications with her lungs and kidneys,” her obituary says.
In October 2020, the Kentucky Colonel — and subject of a bobblehead — took a roughly two-month break from work to battle uterine cancer. She used her experience to advocate for getting mammograms and pap smears and for being COVID-safe.
Now that she’s gone, her obituary says, “Her dogs, Teddy Bear and Georgia, also mourn her passing as well as many other dogs who loved her over her lifetime.”
Moore was the executive director of the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
The commission asked that anyone who wants to donate in her honor give to Jacobs Hall Museum or to the Knowledge Center on Deafness.
The Kentucky Lantern is an independent, nonpartisan, free news service based in Frankfort.
