Ben Moore

 

Confirmed Records and Analysis: Ben Moore (PCHS Class of 1998)

Following the disambiguation process, two distinct news articles can be confidently attributed to the target individual, Ben Moore, who graduated from Pocahontas County High School in 1998. These records provide a factual basis for his activities during his high school years and a compelling glimpse into his life five years after graduation.

1996: The Pocahontas County High School Warriors Football Team

The earliest confirmed record of the subject is a newspaper clipping from The Pocahontas Times, dated October 17, 1996. The article includes a photograph and roster for what appears to be the PCHS Warriors football team. The name "Ben Moore" is listed in the third row of the roster alongside fellow student-athletes.  

The significance of this record is threefold. First, it definitively places him at Pocahontas County High School during the 1996-1997 academic year. Assuming a standard progression, a 1998 graduate would have been a junior during this school year, making the timeline a perfect chronological fit. Second, it associates him with a specific and high-profile extracurricular activity: football. This provides a concrete and promising avenue for further research within institutional records, specifically the 1997 and 1998 PCHS yearbooks, where team photographs, rosters, and individual mentions would be prominent. Finally, it establishes a factual baseline of his presence and activities within the school community prior to his graduation.

Participation in a major school sport like football, particularly in a smaller, rural community where high school athletics are a focal point of local interest, often results in an individual's name appearing with some frequency in local news coverage. Game summaries, season previews, player spotlights, and team announcements in The Pocahontas Times would be expected to mention players by name. This context makes the current technical failure of the newspaper's digital archive a significant impediment. A functional search of that archive for the period of 1995-1998 is the highest-priority research goal, as it is highly probable that additional records of Ben Moore's high school athletic career exist within its pages.

2003: Post-Graduation International Travel with PCHS

The most compelling and analytically rich piece of evidence is a newspaper clipping from The Pocahontas Times dated June 5, 2003. The item features a photograph with a caption that reads: "...Pocahontas County High School visiting Mexico were, l-r, Edwina Arbogast, Erica Arbogast, Karen Friel, Ben Moore, Justin Nadron, and Scott Madron."  

This record is remarkable because it documents the subject, a 1998 graduate, on a trip described as being for "Pocahontas County High School" a full five years after he would have graduated. At the time of this trip in 2003, Ben Moore would have been approximately 23 years old. His presence in this context is highly unusual and opens several potential lines of inquiry regarding his life path after high school.

 In all of these likely scenarios, the conclusion is the same: his presence on this trip points to a sustained, post-graduate connection to the Pocahontas County community and its central high school. This runs counter to the common demographic trend of "brain drain" often observed in rural Appalachian counties, where many young adults leave for educational or economic opportunities elsewhere. This single data point fundamentally shifts the potential narrative of his life from that of a simple alumnus who moved on, to that of an actively engaged community member who remained deeply rooted in his home county at least into his early twenties. It provides a critical five-year update on his story and is the strongest indicator of his life trajectory after leaving PCHS.