Years ago, Zena Moody sat with a family in the front office at Padgett Elementary School and signed a child up for kindergarten. She stayed to watch that same student walk the halls as a graduating senior. Later, when her own elderly parent needed hospital care, the nurse at the bedside was the student she had enrolled.
Moody, the principal’s secretary at Edgar L. Padgett Elementary School on Leelon Road in north Lakeland, is the latest employee Polk County Public Schools has honored in its Focused on Excellence campaign. The district announced the recognition Tuesday…