The Mayor by Austin Beesley

The current Nacogdoches Mayor Roger Van Horn might not have been here if it wasn’t for that amazing Nacogdoches hospitality. Living in Germany during the Vietnam War he decided that he wanted to live in a small town with a university in it. While driving from Houston with his family, their car broke down in Nacogdoches in front of a car dealership where “they were so nice they took us over to the hotel Fredonia, and got us a room”, Van Horn said. When leaving Nacogdoches for the first time, Roger and his wife knew immediately that Nacogdoches was the place for them.
Being the mayor though is not how Roger Van Horn makes a living. He has been a dentist for nearly forty years. His busy schedule consist of doing dentistry work from 8a.m. to noon, then mayor business for about two hours, then back to seeing patients at his practice and then finally back to being the mayor but he said he “loves the contrast” between his two professions.
He started way back as president of Jaycees, then president of the chamber of commerce, chairman of planning of zoning department, and then he ran for office as mayor. “It’s just where I like to serve and it’s so different then sitting in a chair and fixing teeth,” Mayor Van Horn said. But one frustrating thing as being mayor he expressed is the pace of how things get done. Being a dentist, a patient comes in, states the problem, and when the patent leaves the problem is fixed; but on the other hand, working for the city and trying to get closure is very difficult. Mayor Van Horn said “not to get impatient with the government” because the process is so important that it has to take a long time and has to be done right because it affects so many people.
One of the hardest speed bumps to overcome in being mayor is to “ set aside my personal philosophy for the city, not my morals, but my personal philosophical and political I had to learn to set it aside,” Mayor Van Horn said.
Roger Van Horn’s own personal goal is to serve five terms as mayor in Nacogdoches and when asked what he will do after being the mayor and a dentist he replied honestly “ I don’t know”, but he will do something for the fear of being “bored”.