SURVIVING THE GAME

Dwight Moore once interviewed former president Jimmy Carter. The “reporter” was only five years old at the time.

Carter was just one of many national figures Moore interviewed before he was 10 years old. He met the president at a book signing.

“I don’t think I can remember what I asked him,” Moore says, but “I did have that goal of being president one day.”

Moore, 22, son of Geneva and Dwight Moore, Sr. of Collierville, Tennessee, never went into journalism as a career. It was just something he taught himself to do as a child.

And, so far, Moore hasn’t gone into politics either. He’s now working on his graduate degree in computer science at Stanford University. People also might recognize Moore as one of the most recent cast members on TV’s Survivor He’s one of the stalwarts this season who competes in challenges, vying for its $1 million top prize. The award-winning show, now in its forty-third season on CBS, has made Time Magazine ’s list of the 100 greatest television shows of all time.

Growing up in the GermantownCollierville area, Moore played piano, video games, and read a lot of books, including young adult, science fiction, and historical biographies. “My interests were super-wide and always have been.”

Carter was the first political figure he interviewed. Being able to interview the former president was a no-brainer for him. “Someone in the same field I want to go into,” he says. “He’s available. Why not ask the questions?”

Interviewing people was good for Moore in another way. “By nature, I am on the shy side,” he says. So “reaching clockwise from top: Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice were among the dignitaries Dwight Moore interviewed as a budding journalist; Moore's senior yearbook portrait out and talking to people” helped him with his shyness.

There were others. Moore also interviewed former United States Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright, and Colin Powell. “I had sit-down interviews with all three,” he recalls. “They were all so nice,” he says. “Oh, my gosh, yes.”

Moore talked with non-political figures as well. He interviewed National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Awards honorees, including professional basketball player Bill Russell and singer Usher. Of the latter, he says, “I was the only journalist they let interview him. He was so late. All the other journalists had left the red carpet area at that time.”

Moore’s interviews were “all related,” he says. “The goal was to ask serious questions about their background. Why they did what they did. Talk about influences, among other things. Very conversational.”

His mother went with him to take videos of the interviews or to take notes if the subject didn’t want to be on video. “My mom was with me for most of these, Moore says, adding, “I needed someone to drive me.”

His parents helped find articles on people he was going to interview, but Moore says, “I came up with the questions myself.” He generally tried to ask between eight and 10 questions. “I wanted to be fully prepared for what I wanted to ask them. I didn’t want to ask questions that could easily be found online. That would defeat the whole purpose.”

When he was 7 or 8, Moore began his desire to interview former president Barack Obama. “I wanted to be president for so long,” he says. “And now having representation for young kids wanting to be president was inspiring.”

Would he still interview Obama if he got the chance today? “Oh, my God, yes.”

Moore also did some newspaper writing over the years, saying, “I wrote news articles two or three times for The Commercial Appeal.” He wrote a story about the 2010 British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Even though he was only nine years old, he and his family traveled to the coastal areas of Alabama so he could do the story.

Moore wasn’t paid for that work, but he got published. He would send in his stories with a letter saying something like, “I did something cool. Please put it in the paper.”

His goal of becoming president of the United States “kind of stopped” after he entered CBHS. “At that point the presidential goal was still there,” he recalls, “but slightly fading.”

Moore also lost interest in going into journalism. “I thought, ‘I’m much better at science and math than writing and reading. I’ll stick with the math and science side.’” His presidency and journalism goals “shifted into STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math,” he says. “I had an affinity for math since first grade.”

Moore enjoyed his days at CBHS. “I did well. I got good grades. So, yes, I was a pretty good student, I guess.”

He also practiced self-discipline, which he continues to do. “Time management has always been super important. Paying attention. Having a good regimen has been consistent for me. It’s something I’ve done since elementary school.”

In elementary school, his parents told him he could “take 30 minutes to chill” and do what he wanted to do when he got home from school. “Take some time to relax, but don’t go over that time.”

He remembers that “we had a little timer in the house I set for myself.”

After a half hour or so, then Moore would begin studying. “You have to have that self-discipline so you’re not staying up until 3 a.m. That’s always been my schedule.”

His parents’ reasoning? They didn’t want him “to be on his Xbox all day,” he says.

Moore was valedictorian of his senior class at CBHS. Asked what his grade point average was, he says, “I want to say like 5.25 or something. I don’t remember.”

In his senior year at CBHS, he earned partial scholarships to Stanford University and Yale University, but he chose Stanford because of its computer science program. “[It’s] one of the most established in the world, probably.” And, he says, “When it comes down to it, I don’t like the cold weather. So, Stanford kind of won out for me.”

Stanford, located in Palo Alto, California, about 45 minutes south of San Francisco, has been “amazing,” Moore says. “I finished my undergraduate degree back in February or March of ’22. He’ll complete his graduate degree at the end of this year.

In addition to his studies, Moore enjoys the interaction with people “from all walks of life. Meeting somebody new is an opportunity to learn something from their life experiences. Maybe they’ve been through something you haven’t.”

As for what he wants to do when he gets out of school, Moore says, “Long term, I want to be able to work for myself within the tech space.”

His career will be in “the computer science area,” but he says, “the field evolves so fast, it’s hard to say what I’d create in five years. My degree in artificial intelligence is evolving day by day. Everything I learned in AI might not be applicable in five or 10 years.”

With that kind of diverse background, how did Moore land a role on Survivor ?

“At CBHS, I played football for a year and tennis one or two years. I work out on my own. I stay consistent in that. Just lifting, typically. Cardio. Then I’d go back home and do that three to five times a week.”

Moore also is a long-time fan of — and has wanted to be on Survivor — since he was a child.

He sent in a video to the show “on a whim” at 1 a.m. in September 2018 and woke up the next morning to a call from one of the show’s producers on the order of, “Hey, We like you. We found your video interesting.”

Moore, who describes his life as “mostly academic,” was drawn to the idea of living outside and experiencing physical challenges. He also liked the idea of meeting “a vast amount of people with their own life journeys with some kind of interesting backstory.”

He finally made it on the show last May. “Meeting all these people will have a good impact on my life,” he says. “And, also, I’m the type of person who loves these kinds of challenges. Doing things that are out of my comfort zone.”

He adds, “I’m naturally curious. I like exploring new things.”

The current season is still airing, so he isn’t allowed to talk about what’s going on in Survivor or even to say how much he weighs. People will just have to watch the show.

Moore, who doesn’t drink or smoke, likes to play video games and board games in his spare time. But the board games are “a lot more niche: Red Dragon

Inn, 7 Wonders, Root.”

He likes to listen to “rap, R&B, and hip-hop, mainly.” Although he has musical talent, Moore says he hasn’t touched a piano in a while. “Ooh, A long time.” That’s the same for other musical instruments. “I played French horn in the band at CBHS. After that, I just stopped.”

What he wants to “get better at” right now is “reaching out to people” he hasn’t talked to in a long time. “Maintain communication.” Meeting new people was “the biggest thing” for Moore when he was at CBHS. “People I wouldn’t have met otherwise. People from various backgrounds.”

Jamie Elkington, director of marketing and communications at CBHS, is a Moore fan. “He came to this place and he made it better,” Elkington says.

“He made the most of his experience here. Everyone who got to know him just loves him.” That followed Moore to college. “His first year at Stanford, he was elected Frosh Council president,” she says. “It’s just hit after hit after hit with Dwight.” Moore, she says, “is the kind of person who never has known an enemy. He just is really good at connecting with people no matter who they are.”

And, Moore gives credit for the success he’s encountered so far to where he went to high school. “Of course, I would say I was super-prepared for Stanford, coming from CBHS,” he says. “There was no major jump when I got to Stanford. I just thought, ‘Cool. I’ve got this down because I had to prepare at CBHS.’ So, nothing was shocking."

—Michael Donahue '69