Youth Uses Talent For Holiday Mural


11/26/08
By STEPHANIE MILLER
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Photo By Joey Wilson By STEPHANIE MILLER

When a local business asked Dublin High School art teacher Katrina Waters to recommend a student who could paint a window for the holidays Shaundre Horne was thrilled to find out he’d been recommended for the job.

“I came to school one day and my art teacher said someone had called and said he wanted someone to paint a turkey,” said Horne, adding he was asked to sketch an outline of the turkey he could draw for the business owner to see. “He liked the example so I painted the window.”

While painting the turkey as fun for Horne and fellow student, Katie Hodges, who helped with the project one day, Horne said it is not his favorite kind of painting. Horne’s turkey graces the windows of The Ink Shoppe.

“I like to paint and I like to sketch. I believe my painting and my sketching are way better than the painting on the window,” he said.

Horne, a senior, said his middle school art teacher Nancy Perry got him interested in using his talent. But he doesn’t plan to build his career around his talent. He has specific plans.


“I would like to go to Valdosta State and major in psychology,” said Horne. He also wants to be part of the school’s ROTC program. Then upon graduation he wants to join the Air Force and become a psychologist.”

No one can accuse Horne of not having his future planned well. He already has plans for his retirement.

“Then I’m going to retire from the Air Force, come back to Dublin and become an ROTC instructor and an art teacher at the high school,” he said.

Horne was a little reluctant to admit that his grade point average right now is an “87, but I’m going to bring it up.”

“I really wanted to be an honor graduate,” He said.

There’s no doubt he’ll make it as he list of accomplishments are already impressive.

Horne is a member of the Citizens Bank Youth Advisory Council, President of the Anchor Club, Editor of the Dublin High School year book committee, an ROTC color guard at DHS and a graduate of the Laurens Youth Leadership.

How did he get so accomplished?

“I can’t really point out one person,” he said. “It’s been my family. They have been like, ‘you’ve got to keep one goal in mind. You can’t stray off that mindset.’”

Horne said he was adopted as a baby, but has since come to know his biological parents. He feels blessed to have so many people in his life who love and care about him. And, he understands his mother giving him up for adoption when she could not care for him as she sought her educational goals. His birth mother is now a physiologist in Atlanta. His “real” mother is his adoptive mother and he has no regrets being her son.

That mother, Jacqueline Christian, said her son has never given her any “real” trouble. She believes it’s because of her parenting techniques.

“My sister and a lot of people tell me that I was too strict on him. It’s not that I was strict on him. I wanted the best for him. He’s never been one that could just go and do when he got ready. I always had limits set for him. I always told him that the only way he could make it in life was to stay out of trouble. School is number one as far as his future and education. Art is just something he likes to do,” she said.

Christian has high hopes for Shaundre and her younger son as well. But, since Shaundre is nearing graduation the focus is on him.

“I’m praying and trusting God he will,” she said.