Peggy Moore is pictured at the Lake Placid Public Library on Feb. 27, two days before the 2024 LPHS Winter Carnival coronation.(News photo — Sydney Emerson)

LAKE PLACID — Peggy Moore has always preferred to stay behind the scenes. At the Lake Placid High School Winter Carnival coronation on Thursday, Feb. 29, though, she’ll take the stage as the carnival’s archbishop.

Moore said she was “flabbergasted” when she got the call from carnival organizers.

“I thought, ‘I don’t deserve that,'” she said. “Give me a room full of children, it’s great. But adults — I like kids. I just like to fly under the radar. But I was totally honored.”

Moore, 65, is a true Lake Placid native. Her father’s family, the Kendricks, were from Lake Placid. A 1950 photo of her aunt, Agnes Kendrick Reiss, was on the cover of the February 2024 issue of Adirondack Life magazine and her mother was from Youngstown, Ohio. She said that the thought of leaving Lake Placid for another place never occurred to her.

“I never even thought about moving. It never even entered my mind,” she said. “My family’s getting thinner and thinner as everybody’s aging and moving up to heaven or out of town, but (Lake Placid) is very near and dear to my heart.”

Peggy Moore, left, then Peggy Kendrick, carries the LPHS Winter Carnival queen’s crown in to coronation in 1964. Moore was in kindergarten at the time. (Provided photo)

She’s been involved with the LPHS Winter Carnival for a number of years. Her first carnival was 60 years ago when, at 5 years old, she was the kindergartener selected to carry in the queen’s crown.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Moore said. “I didn’t want to be that person because all my friends got to wear little jingle bells on their cute little outfits and I was separated. So I didn’t want to be the crown bearer, but I was.”

Moore attended St. Agnes School until middle school and then transitioned to public school. Though she was not on the carnival court in high school, she has fond memories of carnivals past.

“We did snow sculptures when I was in high school. We’d all pick a popular song and try to make an ice sculpture of it,” she said. “It was always fun to go to the Snowball Hop. It was a big dance and everybody could go and everyone would get a new winter sweater.”

In the years since graduating from LPHS, Moore married her husband, Tom, and they had two children, Patrick and Juliana. Moore is also a grandmother to toddler JJ.

Children are Moore’s life’s work. After some time spent working in retail, she became a teaching assistant at Lake Placid Elementary School, a job she held for 22 years until her retirement in 2022. Around the same time she began working at LPES, she also got involved with the carnival again, this time as a kindergartener wrangler. She continued to help with the carnival after her retirement.

When Moore was asked to be this year’s archbishop, she quickly realized that the seniors on the carnival court would’ve been her students at LPES.

“That was a great class. I loved that class,” she said.

The senior class has expressed its excitement that she’s the archbishop, she added.

Moore said the LPHS winter carnival is “a celebration of winter and hard work.”

“I love the camaraderie that happens between the students. I love how they all get together and include each other,” she said. “I’ve seen kids walking on the street with all their (carnival) colors, so I know this whole week has been fun for them. … Hopefully they enjoy it as much as (alumni did).”

Lake Placid is a beautiful and unique place to live, Moore said. Throughout her life, she’s taken advantage of everything the area has to offer.

“I walk every day around the lake and I like the pictures. I like to hike,” she said. “It’s beautiful here. Every single day I take a picture. Every day.”

A Lake Placid girl to the core, before a foot injury, Moore also used to ski cross-country and downhill. She also recalled childhood winters spent on the Lake Placid Toboggan Chute — her grandmother lived right across the street from the chute, and she and her cousins would store their toboggans at her house.

“It’s just fun,” Moore said. “Every part of it is fun.”

LPHS Winter Carnival coronation was set for 6 p.m. on Feb. 29 in the high school gymnasium.