A Name on a Fund That Saved a Life
In December 2010, I collapsed on the basketball court at East Stroudsburg University's Koehler Fieldhouse. My heart stopped. I did not know, until much later, the story behind the name on the fund that helped place the AED on that wall — the device that restarted my heart and gave me back my life.
Gregory W. Moyer. I did not know him. He did not know me. Greg died of sudden cardiac arrest in 2000, and his family turned that loss into the Gregory W. Moyer Defibrillator Fund. Rachel Moyer and the fund helped place AEDs in public buildings, including ESU's Koehler Fieldhouse. They could not have known which student, on which court, on which day, would need one. They just knew that preparedness was not optional.
Preparedness Is Institutional, Not Personal
When we talk about preparedness in schools, we usually mean fire drills, lockdown protocols, first aid kits, and AEDs on gymnasium walls. These are physical preparedness measures. What most schools and districts have not built is institutional preparedness — the financial and operational infrastructure that protects the school community when a key leader is suddenly gone.
The AED on the wall at ESU existed because someone decided before the emergency that it should be there. Key person insurance works the same way. You don't put it in place after the superintendent dies. You put it in place years before, precisely because you don't know when — or whether — you will ever need it.
The Parallel Is Not Metaphorical
Consider what an AED does: it sits unused for years, maybe decades. Most institutions that have one will never need it. And yet the logic of having it is airtight — because when the moment comes, the cost of not having it is unrecoverable. Key person insurance sits in the same category. A district that carries a $500,000 policy on its superintendent for 15 years and never files a claim has not wasted its money. It has purchased 15 years of institutional security.
The Beat Goes On
Latimore Life & Legacy exists because a community invested in preparedness before a crisis arrived. My business is built on the conviction that the communities of Pennsylvania's Coal Region deserve the same protection — for their families, for their institutions, and for the leaders who serve them.
If you lead a school district in Schuylkill, Luzerne, or Northumberland County, I would like to talk with you about institutional preparedness. Not to sell you something in a first conversation. To help you ask the right questions about what your district has — and what it is missing. Because preparedness, as Rachel Moyer and the Gregory W. Moyer Defibrillator Fund showed, is never optional.
#TheBeatGoesOn
Many thanks,
Jackson M. Latimore Sr. 1544 Highway S. Rt. 61 - Pottsville, PA 17931 717-615-2613 Jackson1989@latimorelegacy.com www.latimorelifelegacy.com card.latimorelifelegacy.com