UPDATED February 3, 2015: The Rev. Susan Slaughter and the Rev. Coutland Moore have been named by the Rt. Rev. Rayford B. High, Jr., as chaplains to the retired clergy and spouses of the diocese. Jim and Anne Horton stepped down from that post last year. Read more here.
The Rt. Rev. Rayford B. High, Jr. recently asked Jim and Anne Horton to take on the positions of chaplain to the retired clergy and their spouses.
“The Bishop’s appointment of us as chaplains to the retired clergy was a wonderful and challenging surprise. Anne and I are, under the bishop’s guidance, in the process of defining and understanding this new assignment. In time, we will have a clearer vision. However, we are wholeheartedly determined to be of assistance in any way possible to our friends and fellow clergy as we celebrate the blessed life and rich journey which we share in a diocese to which we are devoted,” Jim Horton wrote in an email.
The beginning of their work of ministering to retired clergy has been delayed slightly while Anne Horton recovers from neck surgery in April. She hopes to get clearance from her physician to resume a full schedule in June.
Anne Horton is a retired teacher. Jim Horton retired in December 2011 after 13-and-a-half years as priest in charge at St. Elisabeth’s Episcopal Church, 5910 Black Oak Lane, Fort Worth, Texas 76114. He is now assisting at St. Luke’s in the Meadow, 4301 Meadowbrook Drive, Fort Worth, Texas, 76103, where he and Anne worship.
The Hortons are from Louisiana, where both completed high school and undergraduate work. Anne Horton received Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Northeast Louisiana University and is a thesis short of another Masters in Special Education (Mental Retardation) from Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, NC. She taught school in Monroe after receiving the Bachelors and before receiving the Masters. They married after she received the Masters and left for Austin for Jim to enter the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest. They have two children. Their son Jay and his family live in Memphis, TN.; and their daughter Kristin and her family live in Birmingham, AL. They have 6 grandchildren. Anne and Jim Horton will celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary in August.
Anne Horton has taught preschool mentally and physically challenged students as well as 8th-graders in a regular, standard curriculum. However, she said she especially cherished the years in which she taught 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade students “who did not pass math in the old dreaded TAKS tests.”
Prior to seminary, Jim Horton taught history in the junior college circuit for four years. He graduated from the Seminary of the Southwest and Sewanee. He was curate and assistant at St. Andrews Cathedral in Jackson, MS and rector of St. Michaels in LaMarque, TX. He has served in five dioceses and this month celebrated the 40th anniversary of his ordination. The Hortons returned to Fort Worth in 1993. He served as a full time VITAS hospice chaplain for slightly more than 14 years while also serving as a supply priest in several congregations. He retired from VTAS in 2007.
Jim Horton is an avid reader and enjoys working in their small yard and vegetable garden. He uses all 5 grills on their back porch, although Anne said, “I find that he gives away more of the food he cooks than we eat. We live in a fairly new subdivision in Benbrook and ours was the first house on the block. He has smoked a ham for every person who moves in on the block. A house is being framed now on the last lot on our block and there are 3 more houses that are sold and 2 others ready to sell. So we figure he has 6 more hams to smoke. ”
Anne Horton is gifted seamstress; having sewn garments most of her adult life. When the first of their five granddaughters was born, she learned to smock. A few years ago, she purchased an embroidery machine and as time permits, she embroiders – most often items with Episcopal Church logos on them. She also loves to build and create things, a process made easier because she owns her own miter saw and many electrical hand tools in addition to an electric tile saw. She has worked on various projects for church and her neighborhood. And, like Jim, she is an avid reader.
Jim Horton wrote, “I must say that returning to Fort Worth has been a wonderful blessing. I have always thought of Fort Worth as my home diocese, having served as rector of St. Luke in the Meadow from 1978-85, where we currently worship and I assist. Having moved in several assignments during my career, I never felt fully grounded and at home until our return to this diocese, to which we are deeply devoted.”