Bladen County Commissioner dies unexpectedly

Margaret Moore was a great asset to Bladen County. She was a county commissioner and a former Bladen County School Board member. In fact she was the county’s Principal of the Year last year at East Arcadia School. She was a great communicator, but a secret that she held back from her family may be the reason she died over the weekend.

Moore underwent gastric bypass surgery last Tuesday, but only her doctors knew it until she came home. Moore’s husband of 26 years said there weren’t any post-surgery complications until Friday night.

“On Friday night her stomach started to pain,” Marion Moore said. “She took some pain medication, and we went to bed about 10:00. When I got up about 7 a.m. I saw her sitting in her chair, and you could see her stomach had swollen.”

Margaret was rushed to the Bladen County Hospital, but it was too late. An autopsy will be performed in Fayetteville Tuesday to determine what went wrong.

“I’m not going to do the what if thing,” said Patrick Moore, the oldest of Margaret’s three children. “I just wish things had gone differently.”

Margaret Moore was principal of East Arcadia School for three years. Ron Coley is the current East Arcadia principal. He paid his respects to the family Monday afternoon.

“We had a moment of silence in the morning,” Coley said. “Most of them had heard by the beginning of school. We had a moment of silence. There’s a lot of sadness there. It’s a great loss to the school and to the community.”

Marilyn Munn is a teacher assistant at East Arcadia. Moore was her friend and boss.

“Ms. Moore was a strong woman,” Munn said. “She was a go-getter.”

Munn said she and Moore had discussed her weight before the surgery.

“I knew she always had a problem with weight, because we talked about it,” Munn said, “But I had no idea she was going to have the surgery.”

The visitation for Moore is Thursday from 6 to 7 p.m. at Peoples Funeral Home in Whiteville. The viewing starts Friday morning at 9:30 at Elizabethtown Middle School, followed by a celebration of life funeral service at 11 a.m.