Laura Moore is an environmental scientist who has lived in Washington County for 15 years. She has two daughters – ages 10 and 13 who attend Barre Town Middle and Elementary School.

Laura is a dedicated mother who strongly believes that being a parent is the greatest privilege and responsibility that she has ever assumed. Laura also has a deep interest in, and strong commitment to, her community. She has made significant contributions to the cultural life of Central Vermont through membership on the boards of the Eleva Chamber Players and the Green Mountain Youth Symphony.

Equally committed to education, Laura is serving her third term on the Barre Town school board. She is also in her fourth year serving as the Barre Supervisory Union board chair. These experiences tapped an instinct for public service and a desire to expand her role in Washington County affairs, prompting her inaugural run for state office in 2008, a run that allowed her to listen closely to her neighbors across the county and to learn their concerns and their needs.

In Laura’s youth, this instinct was instilled and nurtured in a family with a strong commitment to helping the most needy in our society. Laura’s father was a minister and civil rights activist. Laura’s mother was a teacher and public school administrator. Laura has vivid memories of her home filled with guests and news and conversation about the social issues of the day. Her father worked with Dr. Martin Luther King’s voter registration efforts in Mississippi in1965 and in organizing the Poor People’s Campaign. Her father stood near Senator Robert Kennedy in Indianapolis in April, 1968 when, in a moving and now-famous speech to calm the crowd, Senator Kennedy informed them that Martin had been killed earlier that evening.

In the 1970s, Laura spent her summer vacations working with the children of migrant farm workers in California and Indiana as her parents were assisting Cesar Chavez in organizing the United Farm Workers movement. During her college years in Minnesota, Laura organized and helped operate a refuge for middle school children. These experiences instilled in her a recognition of the importance of the commitment our society must have , as Hubert Humphrey said, to those in the dawn of life (the children), those in the twilight of life (the elderly) and those in the shadows of life (the poor, the sick and the disabled).

While in college, Laura had the privilege of being mentored by a charismatic, profoundly committed professor named Paul Wellstone.--an important source of inspiration in her life from that time forward. A few years after Laura graduated from Carleton, Paul Wellstone was successfully elected to the U.S. Senate. where he had a tremendous progressive impact – on domestic and on foreign policy in his all too short tenure in office.

Laura’s time on the Barre school boards has piqued her interest in expanding her commitment to work to improve the lives of her neighbors in Washington County and in the great state Vermont.