As a former Homer News reporter and editor, I knew Judge and Mayor James Hornaday really didn’t like us at our old offices on Landings Street. The legend went that he started the Homer Tribune because he felt the former Washington Post owners infused the News with a bit of their liberal bias. It probably didn’t help that the Homer News wrote about lawyers preempting Judge Jim from their drunk driving cases and his successful lawsuit to stay on the bench in Homer — and really, to defend judicial independence.
Hornaday died last week at 87, and his career in law, politics, journalism and community service serves as a model for how someone who loves their town can leave a legacy worth honoring. Jim, I’ll drink a nice glass of single malt Scotch tonight in your memory.
In the hindsight and the supposed wisdom that comes with old age, I think Jim did the right thing by starting the Trib. His little weekly newspaper challenged its competitor to do better, raising the standards of journalism on the Southern Kenai Peninsula. I didn’t realize the importance of that until I helped found the Homer Independent Press.
As mayor, James Hornaday tightened up city council meetings and made them run more efficiently and in less time — a skill he learned as a judge. I can still remember jaws dropping as people used to babbling on for 10 minutes got cut off by his gavel. Three minutes meant three minutes. His greatest accomplishment as mayor was directing the city council and administration to develop a climate action plan, one of the first plans in the state and reported on by ABC News.
Intellectually curious, he read widely. One time he wondered what the net effect would be between sea-level rise and glacial rebound. Hornaday asked the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve to do some research, and the study found a net gain for land rising. The introduction to that study notes it came about after Jim wrote a letter to the research reserve posing the question and asking for help “to better understand land and sea-level changes in the Kachemak Bay region.”
And on a personal note, Jim’s example fighting prostate cancer found resonance with me when I got my own prostate cancer diagnosis. In late middle age, he got the cancer that affects one in eight people with prostates. He received treatment at a clinic in California and said the other men dubbed him the mayor there. His openness and courage in fighting cancer helped inspire me in my own struggle.
Sometimes gruff, Jim didn’t suffer fools, but he loved justice, journalism, a well-run council meeting and the town where he raised a family. He will be missed, but like all lives well lived, his memory endures in the town he made better by his good works.
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