A Ph.D. in hard knocks

By AMELIA DAVIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 30, 2000

[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford 1998] Roy Moore, a former foster child and honor student, has had hard times before, but the split from his wife is the toughest, he says. He hopes to return to college someday.

CLEARWATER -- Roy Moore is starting over.

At 20, the Countryside High School honor graduate is broke and about to have a marriage annulled. He would be homeless except for the generosity of friends.

Moore says his heart is in pieces. He is still in love with his wife, who was a nurse at Morton Plant Hospital when they met at the Chuck E Cheese restaurant where he used to work.

"This is the toughest situation for me," Moore said. "And I have been in some tough situations. What hurts is I really thought this would work."

The Times told Moore's story on April 15, 1998, in an article headlined "A Spirit to Succeed." Today, the spirit is still there, but success is hard to find.

Moore, you may remember, lived most of his life in foster homes or on the run with his mother, who often was only a step ahead of the law. The only thing he knew about his father was his name.

Once, when Moore was 12, his mother kidnapped him from foster care and headed for South Florida with him, a boyfriend and two half sisters. For days, they lived in an old Buick, dyeing their hair and using fake names to avoid the police. Once, in Volusia County, when the Buick quit running, they stole a Chrysler at knife-point. Eventually they were caught in a St. Petersburg park, where the mother was arrested and the children returned to foster care.

Moore attended Countryside High School while living at the Florida Sheriff's Youth Ranch. By his junior year, he was doing so well that the state allowed him to move into an apartment by himself. The $400 a month the state normally would have paid a foster parent was given to Moore for rent and living expenses.

In June 1998, he graduated with honors from Countryside. That summer, Moore found work with Pinellas County property appraiser Jim Smith, and in the fall he entered St. Petersburg Junior College.

For a semester, Moore's grades were good, all A's and B's. He was learning how to appraise property, giving him experience that would be useful no matter what profession he chose.

During his second semester, he met his soon-to-be wife. Moore said she lost a ring at Chuck E Cheese, and he returned it. Soon they were dating. Before the semester ended, they were on their way to Long Island, N.Y., where they would marry.

"When we went up to visit her family, they were all like "Move here, move here,' " Moore said. "They really wanted us."

Moore had never felt so wanted. This would be the family he had never had. After their wedding, the couple moved into her grandmother's basement.

Moore got a job in the shipping department of a company that makes components for electrical appliances. His wife found work as a nurse. But after a few months, they began to quarrel and drift apart, Moore said.

Last January, "I realized she needed some space," Moore said, so he left to visit a half brother in Kentucky. One night he called her, and she told him not to come back.

In March, Moore piled his clothes and a shar-pei puppy named Bubba into his truck and headed south. Along the way, he phoned his best friend from high school, Mike Eakins. Eakins' mother, Corelia Meyer, wired him money for gas and food and promised him a bed when he reached Safety Harbor.

"I love him as if he were my own son," Mrs. Meyer said.

Moore found a job as a server at TGI Friday's in the Countryside area of Clearwater. One day last week, he was working both the lunch and dinner shifts. He hopes to repay his credit card and school debts and return to college someday.

For now, he is living at Eakins' house. Bubba, the puppy, sleeps on the foot of his bed at night.

"I loved her beyond belief," Moore said of his wife. "I gambled and I lost."

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