Jack Horner: 25 years as a Paleontologist

The Museum of the Rockies is the jewel in Bozeman’s crown, and the museum’s chief paleontologist, Jack Horner, has, more than once, caused that jewel to sparkle.  In the 25 years since he accepted the challenge, Horner has made an international name and solidly placed his domain at the forefront of the world’s greatest natural history museums in the field of paleontology.     

How could a young Montanan who suffered from chronic dyslexia, severe enough to barely get a passing grade in high school and never finish an undergraduate degree at college, rise to the top of his profession and become internationally recognized both in paleontology and for popularizing a fairly obscure science?  If that is not enough, add to it, become the author of seven successful books, director of a Ph.D. program, and the inspiration for a popular book and series of blockbuster movies.  Read on.

Jack Horner was born in Shelby, Montana, on June 15th, 1946, elder of two brothers.  His father was in the gravel business.  His mother had a great love of travel and adventure that she instilled early on in her children.  Nobody understood dyslexia in those days.  Having difficulty at school, Jack was considered lazy, stupid, or both.  He was in his 20s before his condition was diagnosed.  He has since devoted much time to helping and encouraging young dyslexics to overcome their disability.

Today Jack Horner is tall and broad-shouldered with an unruly halo of wavy graying hair and soft penetrating brown eyes.  His handshake is firm. He speaks slowly and deliberately and chooses his words carefully.  “I wanted to study fossils as far back as I can remember.”

 Rocks and fossils were the playthings of his childhood.  He came across his first dinosaur bone when he was eight years old.  That relic sits proudly on his desk today in his subterranean museum office and lab.  He met his first paleontologist in Canada at the Calgary zoo when he was 10. 

After a stint in the Marines and two attempts at the University of Montana in Missoula, which left him without a degree but with the tools he needed to enter the profession of his choice, Horner joined his brother in the gravel business. It was a job he had no interest in, but it gave him the opportunity to work outdoors and dream of the fossils he intended to find and study.  He took the summers off to do just that. Never for a moment did he imagine he would be anything but a paleontologist.  He refused to be deterred by a poor student record.  He knew what he needed to know, learning it at his own pace. 

One summer he sent off letters to every English-speaking museum in the world that he could find an address for, asking if there was a job available anywhere from janitor to director.  He received three replies.  

“I chose Princeton because it was the smallest town.  The others, Los Angeles and Toronto, seemed too big.  I was hired as a technician in 1975.  By 1978 they promoted me to research scientist.”

It would be another four years before Horner returned to Montana for good.  

“Everything that I do is in Montana. I wasn’t collecting anything in New Jersey.  I always wanted to be part of a Natural History museum in Montana but we didn’t have one then.  I was out in the field near Choteau in 1981 collecting dinosaurs when the director of the Museum of the Rockies came and said,

‘Would you mind sharing some of these fossils with our museum?’ 

 I told him, ‘It sounds like you want to start a paleontology program.’ 

 ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Is there anyone you can recommend?’ 

‘Why don’t you hire me? ‘I’m a Montana native.  I’d love to come back.’    And so they made a position for me.”

Marilyn Wessel, former director of the Museum of the Rockies and board member at the time, described Horner’s hiring.  “The museum was founded in 1956 and was then 25 years old.  It was a western history museum just like a million other museums in small towns in the West.  It had a tiny art collection and that was it.  There was also a bit of interest in archaeology. When Mick Hager came ON as director, paleontology was his bent. 

“One day Mick came to the board meeting. He said he had met this fellow from Princeton who was doing some dinosaur work in Montana.  He was really good and we ought to hire him. We were all aghast. It would mean money. Mick said it would cost 18,000 dollars to hire this guy.  Well, that was way beyond anything we thought was possible in 1981.  Besides, we had never heard of Jack Horner. Who could he be?  We immediately thought of the poem ‘Little Jack Horner sat in the corner’ and snickered and laughed.  

“Mick Hager persevered. He argued that there was a rich fossil heritage in Montana and if no measure were taken soon, it would all end up in the large east coast museums.  We needed to hire someone who was disciplined, focused, and skilled at collecting, to keep Montana’s treasure within the state. The board agreed to hire Horner on a one-year basis.

“We were later horrified to find out that Jack didn’t have a university degree.  He had no credentials at all except that he was from Montana.  Sometime in the next year when Jack arrived, we were even more horrified because he was a very shy retiring person.  He wasn’t a good communicator.  He was a little rough around the edges, but he was absolutely focused on paleontology and field research.  We all thought, ‘Oh, what have we done?  What have we done?’

“It wasn’t very long before Jack’s tremendous capacity, his curiosity as well as his devotion to the scientific method came through, and he began to make not only a name for himself but one for Montana in terms of the fossils that he was discovering, analyzing, doing research on, and having some sense of where they fit in the fossil record. He has never looked back.  I don’t think the Museum of the Rockies has either.  It was one of the most serendipitous events.   It made the museum stop in its tracks and completely rethink its entire mission.   We suddenly saw, as Mick had seen, that we could be a natural history museum and do something significant.” 

Horner concurs that the early days were difficult.  “In 1982 I came back as curator of paleontology.  It took me a while to work up to it.  People were reluctant to let me do things because I didn’t have a degree.  They were reluctant to have me as a professor.  They didn’t want me to write an NSF grant, but I had already written two such grants when I was at Princeton.”  It turned out that Horner was very adept and successful at writing grants. 

“The world changed for me in 1986,” Jack Horner told me.  “I got a MacArthur Fellowship.”  That catapults you into a whole new category and then I could do anything.  I could have doctoral students, teach classes, everything.”   The MacArthur Fellowship is an unrestricted award given to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.  The definition fit Horner to a tee.  Today it comes with a half a million-dollar stipend.  Jack received something less than that. 

“There were no strings attached.  You could spend the entire amount on a sports car if you wished.  And at that time it was tax-free.  The first thing I bought was a pickup truck and then I used most of the rest of the money to build a laboratory that is still going.”

Looking back on his accomplishments over the past quarter of a century, Jack was proud to relate: “We’ve got one of the largest dinosaur collections here and one of the finest dinosaur halls in America right now, one of the finest halls in the world. I’ve been part of producing some of the world’s best paleontologists. Mary Schweitzer, for instance, found soft tissue in dinosaurs and proteins which has basically changed the way we think of fossilization.”

Under Horner’s direction, the paleontology department has flourished, using modern technology to connect Bozeman with institutions all over the world.  The dinosaur hall is built in three pieces, two halls for displays with the Mesozoic media center in the middle section. Designed with the latest technology, the content created there can be shipped anywhere on the planet.  It has Internet, television, and broadcast facilities.  Satellites connect the media center with the field.  A recent Horner program was broadcast by satellite from eastern Montana to the London Museum of Natural History. 

Michael Crichton, best selling author, used Jack Horner as the inspiration for his Jurassic Park novel, which was made into successful movies by director Steven Spielberg.  Spielberg asked Horner to be his technical assistant.  “The Jurassic Park movies were great for little kids interested in science but there’s nothing there of scientific value.”

The museum’s curator emeritus, Margaret Woods, spoke of her colleague with admiration and affection.  “Jack used to be so shy, but he is a wonderful teacher.  I have been on three international trips with him, in Africa, India, and China. We would sit down on the grass with Jack, under a tree like in ancient Greece, and he would tell us so many wonderful things.  We have lots of memories and many amusing incidents to recall when we get together.”  

I asked Horner if  Woods was correct in saying he had turned down a job offer from the London Museum of Natural History.  “I have been approached by the London museum and the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.  I declined, but I maintain connections with both museums and appear there for functions, such as the premier of Juraissic Park,” he told me. 

Horner enjoys taking groups on field trips abroad.  “I’ve taken groups to France, too.  Did you know that the first dinosaur eggs were found near Aix-en-Provence in the mid-19th century?  They thought they belonged to large birds.  They didn’t have a clue that they were dinosaur eggs.” Early in his career Jack Horner found and identified the first dinosaur eggs to be discovered on the American continent.

Marilyn Wessel jokingly reminded Horner that he was very ornery when she first met him.  “I may have been then, but I’m not any more,” retorted that mellow fellow, Jack Horner, Jurassic jubilarian and Montana’s first State Paleontologist.      

~ Valerie Hemingway has lived in Bozeman for 25 years.  She is the author of the memoir, RUNNING WITH THE BULLS: My Years with the Hemingways.  Portrait by Lynn Donaldson.