Submitted by
Maura McDermott

Kerr Center President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. James E. “Jim”  Horne was honored for a lifetime of achievement by the Northeastern Agricultural and Resources Economists Association (NAREA) during their annual meeting in early June in Burlington, Vt.   Horne received the association's Outstanding Public Service through Economics Award, which “honors and recognizes economists who have applied agricultural, environmental, consumer, resource or community development economics in a unique way that has contributed toward solving an important problem and improving the welfare of society.” 

Dr. Doug Morris of the University of New Hampshire, who is NAREA secretary/treasure, said that Dr. Horne was being recognized for guiding the Kerr Center's work since 1985, successfully broadening and expanding the foundation's focus and programs.  The center has gone from working mainly with cattle producers in southeastern Oklahoma to serving ag producers raising a variety of crops.  

 

Horne and the center have worked with groups working on issues as diverse as farmland preservation, hunger, and the development of local markets for Oklahoma farm produce.  At the same time, the center remains grounded in the local community, with ongoing livestock and horticultural projects.  
Under Horne's leadership, the center has won awards for its soil and water conservation work, for environmental education, and most recently, for promoting children's health, to name just a few.  Horne has served as chairman of the Southern Region Council for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Sustainable Agriculture  Research and Education (SARE) program; as a member of the Scoping Task Force on Sustainable Agriculture for the Pre-sident's Council on Sustainable Development; and as chairman of the USDA's National Sustain-able Agriculture Advisory Council.  

 

He gave initial testimony regarding the establishment of the now SARE program to congressional sub-committees.  Nominees for the award are “evaluated on the quality of their work and their demonstrated contribution to improving societal welfare.”  The award is not given routinely, but only when a particularly deserving person is nominated, said Morris.   “In the course of doing your work everyday, you are often not aware of the people who are taking notice,”  said Horne, when learning of the honor.  “Then you find out later you made a difference you didn't know you had made.”

 

Horne grew up on a small, diversified farm near the Cold Springs community.  It took perseverance and hard work to make it farming in southwestern Oklahoma, he recalls, with harvest killing drought and hail storms a continual threat.   He has written that he and his family experienced the satisfaction of many successful harvests and life in the small community was something he would never forget. Influenced by a close-knit community of farmers, FFA experiences, and a vo-ag instructor who was both teacher and mentor, he decided to make agriculture his life work.  

 

After completing high school at Roosevelt in 1965, his continued studies took him to Cameron State Agricultural College, and on to OSU where he received a bachelor's degree in agriculture education and then a master's degree in agricultural economics in 1971.   He received his PhD in biology from Timaryev Academy in 1987.  Horne joined what was then the agricultural division of the Kerr Foundation as a consulting agricultural economist in 1972 and had risen to head the division ten years later.  

 

In the mid-80s he was instrumental in refocusing the foundation's work towards an emphasis on sustainable agriculture.  This was a first in Oklahoma, done at a time when many had not even heard the word “sustainable.”   He has served as center president and CEO since 1985.  Over the years, Horne has been remarkably adept at staying attuned to the needs of both farmers and the greater society and has shaped Kerr Center educational programs to meet those needs.  “Kerr Center has always worked to bring new ideas to Oklahoma, that's what we're known for,” he says.   Horne is also known for championing the ordinary, hard working farmer, who is too often forgotten.  

 

“It is important to take care of farmers,” he says.   The values by which the Kerr Center is governed reflect that commitment.  A sustainable agriculture must be socially equitable and ecologically sound, as well as profitable.   Profit maximization should not be the only goal, says Horne.  If it is, quality of life and social justice are ignored, he adds.