20060820 KDDC Senator Sharon Hornberger

Senator Sharon Hornberger

7:30 PM Sunday, August 20^th, 2006

By Kevin Dayhoff

We received word a little while ago that former Carroll County Senator Sharon Hornberger has passed away. Senator Hornberger’s career is the focus of my next Westminster Eagle column that will not be in print until next Wednesday, August 23, 2006. The column was filed several days ago.

As a tribute to Senator Hornberger, please see an advanced copy of my column below. Our thoughts and prayers are with her husband, former Westminster Common Council president Ken Hornberger and the Hornberger family. Senator Hornberger’s passing is a great loss to the community.

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Senator Sharon Hornberger

August 23, 2006 by Kevin Dayhoff (648 words)

© Kevin Dayhoff and the Westminster Eagle

The election season is upon us. Like late summer blooming flowers, festive signs are along roads everywhere. The news media is full of letters to the editor and advertisements.

There are some new faces and new ideas appearing in this election. One of the many things we can be especially proud of, is the growing diversity of our Carroll County elected leadership. It is critical that our elected leadership look like the citizens they represent. We should be proud to have so many women in elected leadership and so many women candidates for this fall’s elections. We have had women in leadership for so long that we have come to take it for granted, but it wasn’t always so.

One of the trailblazers for Carroll County was Senator Sharon Hornberger. On November 30, 1989, Mrs. Hornberger was appointed by Gov. William Donald Schaefer to fill the Senate seat vacated by Senator Ray Beck when he was appointed a Circuit Court Judge. She was the first woman to serve in the Carroll County Delegation to Annapolis.

At the time, she was 45 years old and had served as an administrative assistant for Senator Beck. Born in Frostburg, her father was a minister. Later her family moved to Baltimore, where she graduated from Eastern High School. She moved to Carroll County in 1975.

Ron Brewer, who was chair of the Carroll County Republican Central Committee, during this time period, remarked recently that “Sen. Hornberger was very dedicated and enthusiastic person for the Republican Party and the Central Committee. She was his ‘go-to’ person for when he needed to get things done. She had her act together and once she set an agenda, she stuck with it and got it done… You could tell in her special touch with people that she was a minister’s daughter.”

Sen. Hornberger and her husband, then-Westminster Common Council President, Ken Hornberger, worked hard to make Carroll County a better place to live in a time of change and growth.

Delegate Don Elliott, who served with her in the Maryland General Assembly, remembers that Sen. Hornberger “was a pleasure to work with. She worked in the Republican ‘vineyards’ for many years and was very effective. Before she was appointed Sen., she was an indispensable legislative assistant for Sen. Beck.”

This is a point that then-Delegate Joe Getty remembers well. He served in the Maryland General Assembly with both Senators Beck and Hornberger and he recently observed that “many people don’t realize how important a legislative assistant is in Annapolis. I learned that first hand in the House. Sharon was top-notch legislative assistant for Ray Beck… She was so good that she was selected to be his replacement.”

Mayor Lloyd Helt was mayor of Sykesville for three terms from 1981 to 1993 and president of the Maryland Municipal League in 1985, and he remembers that Sen. Hornberger was “very helpful for municipalities… She had an open door for me or any other mayor or councilmember from Carroll County.”

Sam Greenholtz was a Westminster Councilman when Senator Hornberger was in the Maryland Senate. He is now president of the Greater Westminster Development Corporation, and he recalls Sen. Hornberger’s “great love for Westminster. Oh sure, she looked out for all Carroll County municipalities, but her first love is Westminster. She likes people. She is a people person. She looked out for us, no doubt about it. She is a very down-to-earth individual who would always go out of her way to help people.”

It is important we remember the leaders who have gone before us and laid the foundations of success, which we now tend to take for granted. Carroll County is a better place because of many folks like Sharon Hornberger, who ignored that old saw, “this is the way we have always done it.” We all owe her a huge debt of gratitude and a big thanks.

Copyrighted to Kevin Dayhoff and the Westminster Eagle, with all rights reserved.

(The photograph is on the Maryland State Archives web site)

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.

E-mail him at: kdayhoff@carr.org

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