Ask anyone at the Unalakleet School what Carol Mooers did for the K-12 campus, and you won’t get a quick answer.
Mooers’ official job title was counselor, but she also served as a Spanish and French teacher. She ran the school’s National Honor Society program and helped current and former students apply for financial aid.
Mooers’ role extended far beyond what was on her job description. Each week she would bag up food for students in need. By the end of the week, the students would return the bags and come the next week, Mooers would be there with a smile and even more food.
The Unalakleet School is next door to the Bering Strait School District office. As a regional sub-hub, it plays host to student activities throughout the school year. If there was an event, Unalakleet School Principal, Kris Busk, said she was there, whipping up cotton candy.
“She was always in the student store, no matter what club was operating. She was our ‘cotton candy queen’. She was a master at making a cone of cotton candy,” Busk said.
In February 2025, Mooers was one of ten people to die in a Bering Air plane crash. The cause of the crash is still under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Busk said the loss of Mooers was felt immediately.
“I had to teach the classes she was teaching. Her laugh. At the staff meetings, she would always give raffle tickets, have prizes for the teachers,” Busk said. “It was an element in every single item of our operations. So you say, ‘when did we notice her gone?’ It was everywhere and in everything.”
Busk said from the moment Mooers landed in Unalakleet, she made the entire village her family. And he said confronting her sudden loss didn't come easily for the campus.
“Lot of emotion, a lot of memories, a lot of kids needing to release with discussions about loss and grief and lot of reaching out to the family,” Busk said. "It was really just putting the pieces together, trying to get the puzzle and keep floating."
For the rest of the school year, a sticker with Mooers’ name remained on her staff mailbox in the breakroom. It was removed over the summer to make way for new staff, but Busk said Mooers’ office remains vacant and her position unfilled. He said budget cuts are putting extra strain on the campus, but they’re making do.
“Many hands make light work, and we're doing the best we can. Some of these things fall by the wayside when you don't have the people and you don't have the money,” Busk said. “Carol's memory helps motivate us to move forward and fill that gap and find the time to do what's right for our students.”
Last year, longtime Alaska educator Bob Williams nominated both Mooers and fellow educator Liane Ryan to the National Teacher Hall of Fame. Ryan also died in the Bering Air crash, but was ineligible for the K-12 honor due to her work being funded by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The National Teacher Hall of Fame’s Executive Director, Maddie Fennell, said after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the organization set out to honor educators lost in the line of duty. In 2014, a monument resembling a black granite book with names of educators permanently etched into it was opened to the public.
The site in Emporia, KS sits near a 19th century schoolhouse that Fennell said was relocated to the site brick by brick. She said the quiet setting evokes a deep appreciation for the sacrifices made by educators.
“You know teachers, we often go into education because of our love of students. We never expect to have to give our lives, but teachers will, and they've proven that, that they'll lay down their lives for their students,” Fennell said.
Fennell said the memorial has had to grow over the years.
“When they started the memorial, they had two granite books, and they thought it would take them a very long time to fill those granite books. It took them five years,” she said.
The non-profit successfully fundraised for two new granite books this winter. Mooers and 12 other nominees will join nearly 200 other names already etched into the monument.
