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After 15 years of being a smiling face in the Wilmore Municipal Center, hundreds of city meetings, hours of budget discussions, and countless downtown events, Sharon Moore has resigned from her position as city clerk of Wilmore.

Now, Moore will be an administrative assistant at Wesley Village, with more position opportunities to come in the future. And although this isn’t exactly a retirement, Moore said, “It’s a good move to end my career with.”

“God has moved me into a new role. I am very excited about it. I’m still sad not to be in the city anymore, but God opened the door for that and my replacement; it all just worked out perfectly. Yeah, I’m happy and happy for the change in my life,” she added.

Utilities clerk Donna Back will be the city’s new clerk. Kim Stewart, administrative assistant to the Wilmore Police, will take Stewart’s previous role as utilities clerk.

Moore is very happy for the two ladies.

“Kim is going to do great; Donna’s going to do great. But I’m very happy for them. That’s very important,” Moore said.

Since she was only a year old, Moore has lived in Wilmore. Her father taught at Asbury University, and she grew up playing with the neighborhood kids- one of them being Mayor Harold Rainwater’s daughter.

“Wilmore is definitely home to me,” Moore said. “It’s my heart, and I love it, and I will definitely miss the city.”

Moore attended Asbury University, which was Asbury College at the time, got married in Wilmore, raised three kids who also attended Asbury and has never called another city home.

Before Moore began working for the city, she and her husband were missionaries in the Dominican Republic for three years. Once they returned home to Wilmore, she was interviewed by her old neighbor and professor, Mayor Rainwater, and started as a utilities supervisor. After eight years of working in that position, she became city clerk.

“I loved it; it was absolutely amazing. I love the council members, and that was one of the hardest parts of leaving because I love them, and working right beside them and the mayor was one of my joys,” Moore said.

When asked whether she thinks she and many other women in city government administrative positions do a lot of the behind-the-scenes work, she said, “It’s true. It’s definitely behind-the-scenes stuff, 100 percent, dealing with planning and zoning and customers complaining about tall grass. It’s a lot, it really is.”

And her behind-the-scenes work is recognized.

“Well, she certainly is one of those people that is the face of Wilmore. Rarely do people see most of us who work for the city, except at an event. Still, they would see Sharon every day they walked into city hall or the city municipal buildings, any time we had a major event, council meeting, parade, or downtown events; The downtown merchants, the shop late, the arts and crafts fair, those kinds of things,” said Mayor Rainwater.

He’ll also often ask Moore to step in at events when he isn’t available. And he knows he’s not missed.

“(Others at the event) would tell me, ‘Man, she was amazing,’” Rainwater said. “Whether it was all day, eight hours, sitting looking out a window at city hall, taking care of numbers and people, or doing something in public, she was graceful about it. Like, anytime we would have a reception, a party, or an appreciation, or someone in the city had passed or a member had passed, I would say, ‘Sharon, could you take care of that?’ And she would make sure they got flowers or make sure they got a fruit basket, make a proclamation on short notice, hand out the keys to the city to somebody that I felt needed to have that done or assist me in many ways.”

Rainwater said Moore has made his and the Council’s life so much easier because of her professionalism and organizational skills.

“At the Council meetings, she had everyone’s papers in front of them and all lined out, geographically where they should be, alphabetized if they needed to be that. The logistics, even if your table was taken care of. She even made me a notebook of the Council meetings and would tab those with the date so I wouldn’t have to thumb through papers; I could find those quickly.”

Moving on to Wesley Village

A year and a half ago, Moore’s father passed away. This was when she decided to start a part-time position at Wesley Village. This way, she could spend time with her mother and mother-in-law, multiple professors she had in school, and folks she’s known from living in Wilmore her entire life.

“I adore the residents,” she said.

Recently, Wesley Village offered Moore a full-time position.

“I decided it was time to start a new chapter of my life. My joy is that I will be working with the residents, which is very important to me,” Moore said.

It hasn’t been very long since Moore resigned from the city. She still gets teary-eyed talking about leaving.

“How God placed his hand on everything, it just tells me that in his perfect timing, he’ll show you the way,” Moore said. “Good things are gonna be happening at the city, and good things are gonna be happening at Wesley Village, I say as I move from one end of the town to the other end of the town.”

Although Moore’s departure from the city will leave a void, Rainwater said. He said it’s hard anytime you lose an employee passionate about what they do, but his dad used to say, “Don’t be sad that it’s over, be glad that it happened.”