The day after Evanston native Alex Moore (Medill ’21) turns 27, millions will watch him scheme with, and against, his fellow castaways on the 49th season of the CBS hit reality show “Survivor.”
To celebrate the Wednesday premiere — and his birthday — Moore will return to the Chicago area and watch the show with people from various stages of his life, including high school teachers, lifelong friends and his family.
On the newest season of the popular unscripted series, Moore and 17 other contestants will fend for themselves in the wilderness, face challenges testing their physical abilities and vote each other out until a “Sole Survivor” takes home $1 million.
Moore’s stint on “Survivor” was just his most recent leap of faith after he moved to Washington, D.C. soon after graduating from Northwestern in 2021. Building on two years of summer internships, he went to work for U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) of Illinois’ 9th Congressional District. A year after the move, he became Schakowsky’s communications director — one of Capitol Hill’s youngest.
But whether it was jumping headfirst into the D.C. “swamp” or the islands of Fiji, Moore relied on the skills and community he developed in Evanston.
“I fall back on all these people constantly, whether it’s needing information about what’s going on in the community or just in my personal life as well,” he said. “I really want to be the best person I can, and that’s growing from other people’s advice and other people’s wisdom who’ve been through stuff before me.”
From Student Council to Tribal Council
Among other family traditions, the Moores regularly gathered around the TV to watch “Big Brother” and “Survivor,” discussing game strategy and rooting for their favorite players.
From a young age, Moore was active and adventurous. According to his older sister, Jessica Moore, he often said he would one day compete on “Survivor.”
Young Alex grew up attending local public schools: Walker Elementary School, Chute Middle School and Evanston Township High School. At ETHS, he played baseball and served as class president for three consecutive years.
Long before receiving the official title, his peers called him “Mr. President,” convinced he’d run for political office one day.
“People have known since he was incredibly young that he just has that perfect mix of things where he’s just a good person, a good talker (and) is hardworking,” his longtime friend and fellow ETHS alum Tally Dully said.
As a senior in first-period Spanish, Moore and some of his classmates would discuss — in English — the then-ongoing season of “Survivor,” subtitled “Game Changers.” Two Spanish teachers at the school, Nicole Roubekas-Lane and Tricia Hurley, built on these conversations to oversee an informal “Survivor”-centric club during the before-school AM Support period, when students can meet with teachers before class.
One of Hurley’s students and a classmate of Moore’s remained quiet in class but joined the “Survivor” club. Hurley said the student opened up in a new way around Moore, with whom he played baseball.
“Alex just really has this way of bringing people’s personality out and just relating really well to people,” Hurley said. “Alex is just a walking ray of sunshine. He’s always smiling. He’s incredibly friendly.”
When the “Game Changers” season ended after senior graduation, Roubekas-Lane and Hurley brought the students together for burgers to discuss the finale.
The teachers spoke about the need for “Survivor” contestants to display multiple sides of themselves, building support among fellow castaways before eventually stabbing them in the back. According to Hurley, Moore would know how to separate his kind personality from the need to “outwit, outplay and outlast” the other contestants on the show.
“You have to be able to separate what your goal is from what your morals are,” Hurley said. “You got to be able to lie straight in somebody’s face, and I think that’s what was so exciting for us — is because it’s so beyond anything we would normally do.”
‘A bridge builder’
Moore loves talking to people, he said, and he maintains a perennial love for his hometown, which he dubs “the best place on Earth.” He praised the city’s diversity, heralding it as a place where people of different cultures and backgrounds are “coming together as one.”
“Seeing all the different backgrounds of people in Evanston, I feel like, also ties into how he’s able to connect to so many different people,” Jessica Moore said.
He chose to pursue journalism at the Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications — about 10 minutes away from home and close enough for his parents to do his laundry.
During his freshman year at NU, Moore retained his connections to the Evanston community by dedicating himself to community service, co-founding the University’s Community Engagement Coalition.
Flannery Cusick (Weinberg ’21), a fellow ETHS-turned-NU alum, said that before the CEC, community engagement at NU was too decentralized, with student groups disconnected from efforts to accomplish their goals and support the local community.
According to Cusick, Moore had the drive to improve the community and its relationship with NU through projects interviewing residents and students about the benefits of intercommunity collaboration.
Val Buchanan, the associate director of NU’s Leadership Development and Community Engagement office, said Moore was a “natural” at building trust with people and that his work in the CEC helped set the direction for the office’s early years.
Cusick also noted that Moore would often connect both his NU and ETHS friends on and off campus at social gatherings and would stay in touch with his ETHS peers attending NU.
“He’s just a very earnest guy,” Cusick said. “I can’t wait to see all of America fall in love with him.”
Moore briefly reported for Northwestern News Network, journeyed to Washington as a reporter for Medill on the Hill and interned on NBC’s “TODAY” for a summer.
But, he said, he disliked deadline reporting. Moore preferred having inside information accessible to him — for example, through House Democratic leadership meetings — instead of having to search for the scoop.
Still, in a city of people trying to “climb on top of you” or “bring you down,” Moore said he tries to build genuine relationships with others to win over their trust.
“I am playing the long game of chess, and so I always have the pieces in my head ready to go, and I wouldn’t do something that would actually bring harm or try and climb over someone else,” Moore said.
‘Heart, hustle and strategy’
In a statement, Schakowsky recalled meeting Moore at a 2018 community event with a “full suit” and a “huge smile on his face.” She said Moore would bring “the same heart, hustle, and strategy to the island that he brings to our office every day.”
Several of Moore’s Evanston and NU friends said they were unsurprised by his rapid rise through the Washington power hierarchy and his position as one of Schakowsky’s closest advisors.
One of those friends, Alexa Mikhail (Medill ’21), said Moore successfully unites people around a common message by displaying empathy in his interactions with constituents.
“That’s just who he is,” Mikhail said. “I think it comes really naturally to him to be a really strong leader of a message.”
Moore has pursued public-facing careers in politics, media and now reality TV, which Dully, the ETHS alum and longtime friend, said can be common among people who “put on a facade.”
But Dully distanced her friend from those figures.
“When Alex is doing anything, it’s so strange and it’s so Alex-specific that it can’t be a charade,” Dully said.
For instance, multiple peers commented on his love of margaritas — specifically, margarita mix. According to one friend, Alex Freeman (Weinberg ’21), Moore would often “parade around” college functions and drink straight from a bottle of margarita mix.
“He’s known for having a palate of a five-year-old,” Mikhail said. “He eats a palate consisting of Kraft Mac & Cheese and chicken nuggets and margarita mix.”
Although Moore calls himself the “Margarita King,” Mikhail said he remained “humble at his core about his success.”
Still, Moore said he brought his love of those drinks to “Survivor” even though some viewers made social media videos decrying the “margarita curse,” in which players who win margaritas at auctions become the next ones eliminated.
“Why would I not try and beat that? That’s so me,” he said.
Moore said that while growing up, some people tried to “put (him) in this box” without truly getting to know him.
But early in life, Moore realized he was better off being himself. Even in actions as small as defying the “margarita curse,” he said, he brought this mentality to “Survivor.”
“I’m going to act however I’m going to act, and that’s going to get me to wherever I’m supposed to go in life,” he said. “No one’s going to tell me what to do. I can make my own decisions and be happy with that.”
Email: [email protected]
Bluesky: @edwardsimoncruz.bsky.social
Email: [email protected]
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