Staff report
This is part of a series on the NKyTribune’s NEWSMAKER award winners who will be recognized and celebrated at the Community Celebration annual event on Sept. 25 at 5:30 p.m. at RECEPTIONS in Erlanger. The award honors those who have commanded headlines throughout the year and brought positive attention to Northern Kentucky. Tickets are available here.
Jack Moreland is a Jack-of-all-trades and master of them all. Need something done? Just ask Jack.
Today, Moreland serves as president of both Southbank Partners and the Newport Southbank Bridge Company.
Southbank Partners is a community and economic development organization that promotes and manages economic development and infrastructure improvement projects in the River cities. The bridge company, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, operates and maintains the Purple People Bridge, the pedestrian-only bridge that connects Newport and Cincinnati.
During his distinguished career, he served as a public high school teacher, principal, and superintendent; as interim president of Northern Kentucky University; and as a top Kentucky education official who helped to merge the state’s community colleges into the system that is now known as the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) and ran the system once it was established. And he was a leader in the work that led to the Kentucky Education Reform Act.
As one of Kentucky’s most distinguished and recognized leaders in public education, he was a proven and successful administrator known for his ability to manage and direct complex organizations.
Raised on a Bracken County tobacco farm, he began his career as a science teacher at Dayton High School, where he became principal, and ultimately, to superintendent of the district. From there, he led a handful of small school district superintendents in a lawsuit challenging the Commonwealth’s funding formula for public schools. The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in favor of Moreland’s coalition, leading to the birth of landmark legislation in 1990, the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA).
In 1996, Moreland was appointed to serve as interim president of Northern Kentucky University where he attracted an on-campus reservation center for Delta Air Lines staffed by students and laid the groundwork for construction of a $40-million natural sciences building.
In 1997, Gov. Paul Patton, who had successfully pushed legislation merging the state’s community and college system, tapped Moreland to oversee the transition of the schools into KCTCS. He served for one year as interim chancellor of the system.
After a year in the private sector as director of human resources for the Dayton-based Radac Corporation, Moreland returned to education, this time as superintendent of the Covington Independent Public Schools – a district with 4,000 students, 800 faculty, and a $41-million annual budget. He served in that role for eight years.
Moreland holds a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Kentucky University and two advanced degrees from Xavier University.
His extensive list of awards includes the Covington Independent Public Schools’ “Person of The Year,” induction into the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame, the NAACP Outstanding Support Award, the Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Outstanding Achievement Award from The Covington Business Council, the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Walter R. Dunlevy/Frontiersman Award, the Kentucky Superintendent of the Year Award, and the Eastern Kentucky University Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Jack and his wife, Phyllis, spend their free time traveling.
