Keeping her cool

Life is unpredictable in so many ways.

Katherine Moshiri of Jackson learned that hard lesson last December when her husband, Mir Shahin Moshiri, turned a gun on her, her 16-year-old son Michael Jeffers, her 4-year-old daughter Madison and 2-year-old daughter Meghan and then himself. Katherine and Meghan somehow survived.

While the shooting was taking place a few blocks away on Mary Street, Missouri Department of Corrections employee Priscilla Kincaid was about to finish her shift at the Cape Girardeau County Jail. She was the person who tended to Katherine, who was bloody from a gunshot wound to her head.

Kincaid leaned on her training to handle the situation. She encouraged Moshiri to keep talking and to maintain eye contact. She kept Moshiri focused in a high-stress, critical situation. Kincaid was calm enough to ask the right questions and to give Jackson police information to prepare themselves for the situation.

Kincaid has been employed by the Corrections Department for 16 years. She is the liaison with the local Domestic Violence Community Response Task Force and teaches an alternative to violence program. And for keeping her wits about her last December, she was recently named Missouri government's employee of the month.