Woman keeps MC grad’s love of reading alive

By MIKE NEUMANN The Independent

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When 20-year-old Marian Central Catholic High School graduate Jordan Horn died in an automobile accident last year, her mother asked people attending the funeral to keep one passion of Jordan’s life alive inside themselves.
That’s just what Cathy Meyer, owner of Reinforcements Inc. The Study Center, is attempting to do this month, one year after Horn’s death.
Meyer first met Jordan’s mother, Laurie Barnes, several years ago when she opened The Study Center in Woodstock Square Mall. Meyer was making copies at Knuth’s Office Outfitters when the two struck up a conversation. Meyer soon discovered Barnes had a linguistics and teaching background, which was just what Meyer was looking for at The Study Center.
Barnes signed on to teach. Her two daughters, then in their middle school years, became familiar faces at The Study Center.
“That was when (bookstore) Books on the Square was downstairs,” recalled Meyer. “If we couldn’t find Jordan, we knew she’d be down there curled with in a book.”
Store owners set up a chair near the window for Jordan to sit and read so that passersby would feel welcome in the store.
Barnes remembers that her daughter’s love for reading was so strong, it was the only way to punish her if she misbehaved.
“She was always reading,” Barnes said fondly. “One day I had to ground her from reading. It was the only thing that worked.”
What her daughter read made her a very knowledgeable person, Barnes said. She knew about all types of religions, about different kings and queens and about the environment, which Barnes describes as Jordan’s “last big passion.”
“She would be able to read books in one night,” Barnes said. “She was just able to read and retain things.”
Because Meyer experienced Jordan’s love of reading firsthand, she chose to keep that passion alive. Meyer signed up as a volunteer for “Love to Read Week” at Woodstock School District 200. The program asks community members to read to pre-kindergarten through middle school students to help instill a lifelong love of reading in them.
Meyer read from some of Jordan’s favorite books. She has also collected from Barnes a page-long list of books Jordan loved.
“I just want everybody to take her love of reading and build on that,” Meyer said. “Last year, at the funeral, that’s when I thought of it.”
Barnes, who is back working part-time with Meyer, said she thinks what Meyer is doing is a wonderful thing.
“It’s just perfect,” she said. “Cathy really understood Jordan that way.”
Jordan’s favorite books include “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand; “The Giver” by Lois Lowry; “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White; “Where the Red Fern Grows” by Wilson Rawls; “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald; and all “Harry Potter” books by J.K. Rowling.
A complete list can be found at Read Between the Lynes bookstore or the Woodstock Public Library.
Meyer encourages avid and casual readers alike to pick up one of Jordan’s favorites as a way to carry on her passion.

This article was published in the February 27, 2008 edition of The Woodstock Independent.