Deputy Brandon Moore named AMW’s 2012 All-Star

By Randa Wagner –

Mor­row County Deputy Bran­don Moore won ‘America’s Most Wanted’ All-Star Award by pop­u­lar vote and accepted the award May 14 from the show’s host, John Walsh, in Wash­ing­ton D.C.

Moore was one of six final­ists from 20 nom­i­nees in the annual con­test, where the win­ner was deter­mined by the pub­lic by vot­ing on the AMW web­site. He was nom­i­nated by the National Sheriff’s Association.

Walsh him­self phoned Moore the after­noon of May 8 to give him the news.

“The voice on the phone said, ‘Bran­don, this is John Walsh from America’s Most Wanted,’ Moore said in a tele­phone inter­view the fol­low­ing day. “My jaw dropped!”

“I’ve never seen it in the his­tory of the con­test like this,” Walsh told Moore. “You won by an over­whelm­ing land­slide major­ity. I think your story just really touched a lot of peo­ple, because peo­ple from all over the coun­try were vot­ing for you.”

America’s Most Wanted flew the fam­ily of four to Wash­ing­ton D.C. May 12 for the cer­e­mony held Mon­day, May 14, where Moore was pre­sented with a $10,000 check. A trip to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series All-Star Chal­lenge at the Char­lotte Motor Speed­way May 19 was part of his prize pack­age as well.

Moore rode in a car with John Walsh and Car­olyn Rehling, of Sprint, in a parade com­mem­o­rat­ing National Police Week, which draws between 25,000 to 40,000 atten­dees from depart­ments through­out the United States as well as from agen­cies around the world. The parade fea­tured a bag­pipe per­for­mance — some­thing Moore is espe­cially fond of — at the National Law Enforce­ment Offi­cers Memorial.

An SUV drove ahead of the car Moore was in, film­ing his pro­gres­sion through the parade. That was Moore’s only real oppor­tu­nity to chat with Walsh, since the AMW host’s time out of the parade was busy with cam­era crews.

“He was a really nice guy, and I gen­uinely feel like he loves what he does,” Moore said of Walsh. “He never turned any­body down who wanted a photo.”

Moore’s sons thought the plane flight was ‘fan­tas­tic’ and spent most of their time look­ing out the win­dows at the view below.

“They were also pretty excited about meet­ing a celebrity,” Moore said of their meet­ing Walsh. By the time they headed home, things qui­eted down and it was ‘back to work and nor­mal life.’

“The best part of the whole expe­ri­ence was being able to have my fam­ily with me,” said Moore.

Posted by Randa Wagner on May 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.