Florida Catholic | Florida Catholic writer Jacquelyn Horkan dies at 49

Florida Catholic writer Jacquelyn Horkan dies at 49

LAURA DODSON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 11.05.08

ORLANDO | The Florida Catholic lost a family member Oct. 24 when Mary Jacquelyn “Jacque” Horkan died in Tallahassee after battling cancer for longer than two years. She was 49.

Horkan, the newspaper’s legislative correspondent, continued during the course of her treatment to inform and educate readers about state public policy matters from a Catholic perspective.

Friends and family members said Horkan embraced death as she lived –fully and with faith – and that the world has been transformed by her.

Horkan was born in Miami on May 29, 1959. At age 6, she asked her father for a horse — an issue he deferred until she was 12. Thomas A. Horkan Jr. laughingly recalled, “I didn’t hear another thing about it until six months before her 12th birthday when she reminded me of my promise and gave me the time to get it done.”

Horkan graduated from Spring Hill College, a Jesuit school in Mobile, Ala., where she honed her writing skills and developed her keen sense of fleshing out the facts incumbent with a degree in history. She used those gifts working for various agencies in Washington, D.C., and at Associated Industries of Florida in Tallahassee, where she wrote and edited for 20 years.

“She went to great lengths, talking to a lot of people and had great success getting access to public officials,” said Mike McCarron, executive director of the Florida Catholic Conference, also a Spring Hill graduate, who has known Horkan since 1980. “She had an ability to get the essence and present the whole story for the reader.”

She brought those gifts to the table of her church, for the last seven years as a freelance writer and legislative correspondent for the Florida Catholic. Horkan’s “Capital Report” provided comprehensive coverage of the issues including: pro-life concerns, voting, capital punishment, justice and Catholic morality.

“We worked very closely on policy issues – the integration of our faith and the sanctity of life,” McCarron continued. “Jacque wouldn’t cut any slack to anybody. She held us accountable to know the facts and support them and required us to sharpen our message when we talked to her, but she also had a great sense of humor. Rarely did we have a conversation without laughing.”

Mary St. Pierre, parish services manager for the Florida Catholic and Horkan’s longtime editor, talked with her weekly and, in addition to respect for her work, got to know the many sides of the woman.

“Jacque loved life and loved her family. She was incredible at legislative reporting,” St. Pierre said. “She was always a peacemaker, had the best sense of humor and loved the Lord and knew the Lord loved her.”

Horkan was a founding parishioner of Good Shepherd Parish where she taught religious education, sang in the choir and participated in Project Gabriel, an outreach to women in a crisis pregnancy. She assisted disabled children at Lighthouse Children’s Home and volunteered at Margaret Z. Dozier Hospice House of Big Bend Hospice.

“Jacque’s favorite charitable act was sitting with people who had no one and she would be with them when they died,” said Horkan’s sister Mary Louise Hays. “And her second favorite was her niece and nephews with whom she shared her deep love for Jesus.”

Hays’ son Christopher is only 4, but composed a prayer, “Dear Jesus, Please bring Eo back down here to Tallahassee. Please. Love, Christopher and Louise,” to express the loss of his “Eo,” the name he called his aunt.

Horkan has joined her mother, Ann Christine Horkan and leaves her father, brother Thomas A. Horkan III and his wife, Zandra Patricia; brother James Timothy Horkan, his wife, Lisa Marr, and their son Andrew James; her sister and her husband, Mark Thomas Hays, and their three children, Christina Marie, Mark Thomas Jr., Christopher Anthony and Richard Thomas.

“Jacque was feisty to the end – her death a moment of grace for her life,” McCarron said, “there is sadness, but it is certainly inspirational the way she lived her life. She took her faith out into the world and helped people.”

Return to Florida Catholic Online Home Page