Zonta honors Carrie Moore

The Zonta Club of the Southern Black Hills honors Carrie Moore as its Yellow Rose Recipient of 2026.
This lifetime achievement award is for a woman in the community who through her lifework has improved the lives of women and girls. Moore is the youngest honoree of the Yellow Rose Award in the club’s 31 year history.   
“When I think about Custer and the names of those who stand out and step forward—the name of Carrie Moore keeps rising to the top,” said Jenny Behlings. “For such a young woman who would consider herself a ‘transplant’ to our community, she has set down some substantially deep roots in a very short time frame.”
Moore moved to Custer with her parents after her high school graduation in Michigan. Four years later she graduated from South Dakota State University (SDSU) with a degree in journalism.  
Moore worked summer jobs at Crazy Horse Memorial.  After graduation from SDSU, she worked as a full-time reporter at the Custer County Chronicle and became someone the community came to know well. Volunteering and serving on boards quickly followed with membership in Zonta (Zontian of the Year in 2016), PEO, economic development, Custer Area Chamber of Commerce, Custer City Parks & Recreation, Custer City Council, Girls Rock coordinator, Gold Discovery Days royalty coach and Black Hill Playhouse Board of Directors, just to name a few.
Carrie “has purchased, and moved, twice, a retail flower shop, adding a bookstore along the way. Collaborating with organizations and other businesses has been her theme as she builds her business.  
“Block parties with the South Dakota Outdoor Shop and the 1881 Courthouse Museum was her brainchild as well as the Bookuquet Book Club, the Book Report, Reading Rendezvous, floral workshops and seminars.  Organizations such as the Custer County Library, Custer School District, Custer Area Arts Council, Black Hills Playhouse, Custer County Master Gardeners and others have been involved in Carrie Moore Productions and benefited greatly,” Zonta officials said. “All you have to do is give her a theme and a date and she’s off to organize it.  If she can lift up someone or another business with her events and shindigs – all the better. ‘The Moore,’ the merrier.”
The Bookuquet Book Club collaborated with the Custer County Library with an event about “The Women,” a book by Kristin Hannah about the women who worked as nurses and medics in the Vietnam War.   Moore also reaches out as a mentor for many girls and young women.
Zonta members say as a florist, Moore connects with everyone in our community in everything from “The cradle to the grave, the happy and the sad and everything in between.”