By Mason Gaspar
Media Editor
As a senior at Santa Rosa High School, I’ve learned that the teachers of our school are what make it special. There’s one teacher in particular who embodies what it means to have spirit, teach and entertain at the same time. A teacher who truly knows what it means to be a Panther is Art Horner.
Although Horner has been teaching for 43 years, this one is his last year of teaching. Horner is now retiring and moving into the next stage of his life. Horner moved around for the first 13 years of his career. He taught in Tallahassee, Florida, then moved to Los Angeles for a brief moment, then spent some time teaching at Slater, and finally landed at SRHS, where he has been part of our Panther family for 30 years. Horner’s reason for coming to the city of Santa Rosa was that he wanted a town that was “in between.” He said, “I don’t want a country town where you’re out in the middle of nowhere, Bay Area access, all of those. I looked at places from Salinas to here. My wife and I did a spring break when we were 25 years old and just drove through all these towns and checked them. We just really liked it here.”
Horner has made such a huge impact on his students that I promise that you can’t find one person who doesn’t know of it. You don’t need to have a class with him to know the legends of Art Horner, as he always led our fight songs on Fridays. If you were to search up Santa Rosa High School’s fight song, I promise that you will find a few videos from the early 2000s—and Horner is there leading it on.
Senior Gabi Tonelli explained what makes Horner so loved: “Something that makes Mr. Horner is so loved and respected is due to his contagious energy and the fact that he’s been part of SRHS community for many years and [has] done a lot of things the school, not just being part of the school’s foundation but also in teaching many juniors the history of our school.”
Even alumni Leah Cederborg said, “Mr. Horner is not just a teacher. . . . Whether it was running into him in Annadel, saying, “Hi,” in the hallway, or cueing the fight song in the main building, Mr. Horner is SRHS.” She explained, “First entering Mr. Horner’s class, I thought history was memorizing facts and dates. Every day he proved me wrong. His smile is infectious and care for every student and every lesson is indescribable.” Cederborg described his time at SRHS as “a gift.”
Horner is beloved by not only all his students but by his colleagues as well. History teacher Ashley Bell said, “Mr. Horner is a constant source of knowledge and positiv[ity]. He is both of those things and he is a goofball. And so he’s got this really positive energy he brings all the time with a huge depth of knowledge, and it’s an outstanding combination.”
Horner said that the best part of his job is his colleagues in the history department. “What’s different here and magical is I wanted a job here. I was working at Slater, so I was applying for high school. . . . I wanted to be there because the history department is so tight.” He explained that teaching can be a lonely job because “you’re the only one, you’re the teacher in there, you’re not my friends, you’re my colleagues; it’s a different relationship.” He added, however, that “the teachers that eat by themselves in their rooms at lunch, I don’t know how they do it. And this department is really tight: we eat lunch together, we go camping together, we go out to dinner together, our spouses know each other. It’s a really nice group of people.”
Horner, talking about the best senior pranks, said, “I’ve seen it all.” He told a story of a senior prank in which he was involved: “Seniors one decided to sleep in at break time. They all brought sleeping bags; all the seniors came to the second floor and laid down and wouldn’t go to class third period. There was no class, the hallways were blocked, so I just laid down with them. The principal came up and was trying to act like a principal to holler at them, but all he could do was laugh.”
Horner shared some final words: “I’m very proud of the diversity of the students here. No matter who you are, you can find your group. I think a lot of that is because we’re a magnet school for ag. and a magnet school for arts. I think it’s very good; you can find your place. We’re a welcoming place.” Be sure to thank Horner for all his years of service, as he will be dearly missed.
