Longtime San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn, died Friday at age 83 in Escondido, surrounded by friends and family.
A former Marine and business owner who served on the Escondido Union High School District board in the early 1990s, Horn was first elected as a county supervisor in 1994 for District 5, an area that spans roughly 1,800 square miles from the Pacific Ocean to Imperial County.
He was replaced in 2018 by Jim Desmond.
During his time on the board, Horn told his colleagues that he "tried to be a champion for North County," adding that he hoped "the voters look at it that way," he said in an outgoing speech in 2018.
Horn said then that the county was in good financial shape because board members had managed to agree on major issues and served their constituents well.
According to a statement from Dustin Steiner, executive vice president of San Diego's chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America, Horn always prioritized services for veterans including declaring the Year of the Veteran and holding an annual veterans conference.
"Bill was larger than life," Steiner said. "He was a principled leader, mentor, and friend who fostered a family atmosphere in the office with a big heart and charming wit."
Horn started the Emmaus School, a nursery, primary, and secondary school located in Uganda in 2016. According to his family, what started as a rural piece of farmland has grown into a thriving educational center with nearly 1200 students and 75 staff.
"My dad loved being `Papa Bill' to thousands of children at Emmaus," Geoff Horn said. "He was one of a kind: funny, decisive, stubborn, impulsive, entrepreneurial, generous, dependable, and unbreakable."
