Lenard D. Moore, an associate professor of English at the University of Mount Olive, received the North Carolina Award in Literature. The North Carolina Awards, created by the state legislature in 1961, are the highest civilian honor bestowed by the state of North Carolina.
Moore has been on the faculty at the University of Mount Olive since 2005. In 2008, Moore became the first Southerner and the first African American to be elected as president of the Haiku Society of America.
Moore is a magna cum laude graduate of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. He earned a master’s degree in English and African American literature from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.