MAXINE HORNER 1933-2021
Most people didn’t know her.
It wasn’t that she was anonymous. It was, simply, that she wasn’t well known. Unless you lived in her legislative district or unless you ever visited the Jazz Hall of Fame in Tulsa, you probably never heard of Maxine Horner.
A former state senator who spoke quietly, served as chair of the Senate’s Democratic Caucus and liked jazz. She was in office for 18 years. That’s what the record says.
But there was a little more to Senator Horner.
To understand that you have to go back to her roots. A graduate of Tulsa’s Booker T. Washington High School, Horner saw the injustice of segregation firsthand. She lived it. She earned an associate degree after graduating from high school in 1951 but put off working toward a bachelor’s, choosing instead to work and raise a family.
Years later, when she was in her 50s, Horner would return to college, attending Langston University, where she would earn her degree. Not long after that she would run for office. Elected to the Senate in 1986, she would be one of the first Black women in Oklahoma to hold elective office.
In the Senate, she was easy to work with. She smiled often. She turned the idea of the crooked politician on its side.
In the Senate she would change the face of the state.
She was known for her love of the arts and education. She helped create the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame and secured $1.5 million in bond funding for it.
But Maxine Horner’s biggest legacy wasn’t music – it was education.
Inspired by the story of Patrick Taylor, a Louisiana oil man, Horner would develop and push legislation that created the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program – OHLAP. The OHLAP plan was based on an idea from Taylor. In March of 1998, Taylor spoke to 183 inner-city seventh- and eighth- grade students who were at risk of dropping out of school.
Instead of the normal ‘you can do it’ speech, Taylor made each student a promise: if they would stay in school, take college prep classes and get a B average, he would see to it they went to college. The response was overwhelming.
Echoing Taylor, Senator Horner wanted the state to develop a similar proposal. It would take her two years to get the bill passed and more time to get it funded. But in the end, her simple idea would help thousands.
Under OHLAP, high school students were required to keep their grades up, stay in school and stay out of trouble. If the students kept their end of the bargain, the state would cover their tuition for college.
The plan focused on lower income families, targeting those who had few opportunities for a higher education.
Like Taylor’s proposal, Maxine Horner’s OHLAP – now known as Oklahoma’s Promise – proved to be a wild success. Records from the State Regents office show that in 1996, a total of 637 students qualified for the scholarship. At that time the state spent $518,574.