Charles O. Moody papers

Charles O. Moody was born May 31, 1927, in Mountain View, California. Moody served as MENC's deputy executive secretary and director of development, helping the organization in a variety of ways, including fundraising, program development, and other administrative tasks. Moody attended San Mateo Junior College and the University of California, Berkeley, as an undergraduate and took graduate classes at Stanford University and University of California in history, secondary education, and school administration.

Moody was appointed as MENC's deputy executive secretary for program development in 1968. Circa 1976, he became the director of development. Before working with MENC, Moody was a staff consultant and project coordinator for the California State Department of Education in Sacramento. He helped originate the California Statewide Fine Arts and Humanities Project (also serving as its first executive secretary) and was involved with the Advanced Placement Program, K-12 statewide social sciences curricula, the reorganization of the State Department of Education, and the administration of federal aid to education programs. He served as a president of the Council of State Social Studies Specialists and was a member of the Curriculum Committee of the National Council for the Social Studies. Moody also authored social studies test materials and was an editorial reviewer and advisor for school texts.

As MENC's membership reached nearly 60,000 in the late 1960s, the organization saw the need to reshape itself. The Goals and Objectives Project (GO Project) was initiated in 1969 with the purpose of establishing more definite long-term goals and the steps to achieve them. The GO Project Steering Committee created eighteen National Committees each tasked with individual assignments that were largely drawn from the 1967 Tanglewood Symposium report on music education, with additional recommendations from MENC National Board members. As MENC's deputy executive secretary, Moody was responsible for several administrative tasks and communicated regularly with the Steering Committee and the National Committees.

In 1969, MENC changed from being a department within the National Education Association to being an affiliate organization. This development, along with MENC's booming membership and growth in activity, called for a new headquarters outside of the NEA offices. Moody played a pivotal administrative role in MENC's National Building Fund Campaign, a drive to create a new headquarters in Reston, Virginia. Other important MENC members involved in the campaign were Louis Wersen (national chairman), Paul Van Bodegraven (head, board of overseers), and Richard Davis (state campaign organizer). The consulting firm Marts and Lundy were hired to assist with the fundraising, and William F. Ludwig acquired contributions from his music industry contacts. The building was completed in 1975 and remains the location of MENC's (now NAfME) headquarters.

Moody departed MENC in October 1980 and in the following years retired to Mountain View. He died on September 25, 1989, in Santa Clara, California.