Candidate: Gloria G Horning

Dr. Gloria Horning is about the health of communities and their citizens, ALL communities and ALL citizens. Dr. Horning has more than 25 combined years of experience in broadcast media, including award-winning documentaries focusing on the history and impacts of social and environmental issues facing small communities in the South. Following her media career, Dr. Horning received a doctorate in Information Studies from The Florida State University with a focus on environmental justice and communications tactics facing diverse communications, and then became a dedicated university professor. Her academic career included Florida A&M University, Florida State University, Northern Arizona University and Louisiana State University, Shreveport. She received numerous awards including Teacher of the Year at FAMU, as well as outstanding community and university service awards at both FAMU and FSU. She left her career to care for her father, Col. (ret) Robert M. Horning an Air Force veteran who served in WWII, Korean, and Viet Nam. Dr. Horning then came to Pensacola following the BP disaster as an Ameri-Corps volunteer and served for two-years with the organization BRACE (Be Ready Alliance Coordinating for Emergencies) training nearly 400 people in our communities in CERT (Communities Emergency Respond Team). Her outreach to diverse communities continued with the Center of Independent Living Human Resource Center reaching out to Northwest Florida county leaders concerning American Disability Act (ADA) guidelines for tourist destinations in Pensacola. She also worked with three other organizations preparing a grant to survey health clinics in 4 counties about access to health care for the disabled, to design and produce information kiosks that are disability-friendly, and to promote the area as a disability-friendly tourist destination. Dr. Horning continues to advocate for more funding to be earmarked for health and wellness of underrepresented communities and for long-term environmental monitoring and infrastructure.  Dr. Horning may be best known for her service to the Wedgewood Communities assisting them in shutting down non-compliant landfills which were polluting their community. She helped members of this primarily African-American neighborhood to organize and protest about the many laws and regulations violations of the landfill situated practically in their backyards.  She stood with the Neighborhood Homeowners Association and the community as they protested the hazardous smell, debris, unsightliness, traffic, and air, soil and water quality until the Escambia Commissioners put a moratorium on permits for new dumps in the area. The State Department of Environmental Protection finally closed the worst landfill, and the neighborhood has banded together to pursue a class-action suit.  Now she is fighting for environmental and social justice issues in the Tanyard Community for stormwater and overflow sewer impacts on the community, walkable sidewalks and crosswalks. In anticipation of her candidacy for ECUA District 2, Horning recently became a certified storm-water inspector. Voters can be assured that Dr. Horning will be on the forefront of ECUA issues affecting the communities she represents, and then research, communicate, and liaise with community representatives on how those issues may best be resolved for the health and welfare of all of the communities’ citizens.