District appoints trustee

Michael Miller

The Coast Community College District has appointed former Costa Mesa

Mayor Mary Hornbuckle to hold the fifth position on its Board of

Trustees, filling the vacancy left by late board member Paul Berger.

At a public meeting on Friday, the four current board members

interviewed 12 applicants for the position, then deliberated briefly

before voting unanimously to appoint Hornbuckle. She will be sworn in

at the board’s next meeting on April 6.

“Thank you for your vote of confidence,” Hornbuckle told the board

after its vote. “I will do my best to live up to your expectations,

and also the expectations of faculty and students.”

Hornbuckle was among 44 original applicants who applied to fill

Berger’s spot, after the former member died in January from lung

cancer. The board narrowed the pool down to 14 candidates by having

each member select five top choices. At the Friday meeting, after

interviewing all the candidates, each board member named his two

favorites, and Hornbuckle made all four members’ lists. One of the 14

candidates did not attend the interview session, and another withdrew

for health reasons.

“It was a very difficult selection,” said board president Walt

Howald. “All 14 of the final nominees were well qualified, and each

brought a unique talent that would be very useful for our district.

“Mary Hornbuckle has been known to us for several years for her

services to education and the community. I look forward to having her

talents and skills as a consensus builder, educator and citizen.”

Hornbuckle, who described herself as “a believer in life-long

learning,” has served as director of St. Mark Community Preschool in

Newport Beach since 1988. She has taken classes at Orange Coast

College, Coastline Community College and Vanguard University, and

previously worked as a reading specialist for the Newport-Mesa

Unified School District. In 2001, she was elected to the Orange Coast

College Alumni Hall of Fame.

As a trustee, Hornbuckle will preside over Area 4 on the district

map, which covers parts of Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa and Huntington

Beach. She and her family have resided in Costa Mesa since 1965.

“I truly support what the community colleges do, and Orange Coast

College is a very dear topic to me,” Hornbuckle said. “It has so much

importance to the community, as Coastline and Golden West do to

theirs.”

Gene Farrell, the president of Orange Coast College, called

Hornbuckle “an absolutely marvelous addition to the board.”

The Board of Trustees meeting on Friday began at 9 a.m. and

devoted 15 minutes to each candidate, who made a short speech and

then took questions from the four board members. Howald, Jerry

Patterson, George Brown and Armando Ruiz asked applicants how they

viewed the mission of community colleges, how they would handle

conflicts with other board members, and what their priorities would

be in the face of budget reductions.

“Mary was one of my top two simply because she’s well known in

Costa Mesa -- 12 years on city council and two years as mayor,”

Patterson said. “She’s also been very active at Orange Coast College

and as the director of the day care center.”

He noted that Hornbuckle had submitted with her application 13

letters of recommendation, by far the most of any candidate. Some of

the letters, Patterson said, came from former state senators, members

of the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce and others in the education

community.

“She had quite a list of supporters,” Patterson remarked.

Hornbuckle will serve as a provisional appointee on the board

until the next regular election in November 2006. She will fill out

the current term of Berger, who was reelected last November.

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at michael.miller@latimes.com.