It all started with a fan letter to former first lady Rosalynn Carter after she released her autobiography in the mid-1980s.
Little did Dan Horn, then a teacher near Washington, D.C., know that a response from the wife of former President Jimmy Carter would lead to a friendship that would span decades.
In the ensuing years, Horn would arrange visits between the Carters and staff and students at St. Genevieve Parish Schools in Panorama City, where Horn now serves as president and principal.
Last week, the St. Genevieve school community said a special prayer for President Carter, 98, during its Ash Wednesday service, days after learning that the nation’s 39th president had entered home hospice care.
In an interview, Horn referred to the Carters as part of the St. Genevieve family and described plans to name a courtyard between new buildings under construction – a new parish hall and a performing arts building – after the former president and former first lady.
“I’m so humbled by the fact that we can call them family,” Horn said on Thursday, Feb. 23.
He recounted being struck by Rosalynn Carter’s “down-home” and “inviting” tone in her 1984 autobiography and how he wrote to thank the former first lady for her book. To his delight, she wrote back. He responded that he would love to meet her.
Months later, Horn was invited to lunch with the former first lady in Georgia, the Carters’ home state.
Thus was forged an enduring friendship.
In 2006, Horn, who by then had moved to Southern California, wrote to Rosalynn Carter again to inform her that the school he worked for in the San Fernando Valley had received national recognition for its character education program, and that St. Genevieve students would be traveling to Atlanta. The students were invited to Plains, Ga., about 2½ hours south, to watch President Carter teach Sunday school in the community where he’s lived most of his life.
The students only had a few minutes with the Carters,…
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