In researching Mozelle Beam, I came across a mention of an article she had published in a “Profitable Hobbies” magazine. I was curious about this article so I tracked down a physical copy of the January, 1948 issue.
The article in question was about a young man whose name I had never come across, a “Raymond Horne” who was apparently a rather impressive magician in the Statesville area before even turning 18 years old. I originally got ahold of a copy in relation to Mozelle Beam, but found Horn so interesting I decided to research his life a bit.
I’ll let Beam introduce him and then I’ll add what else I was able to find out about him.
Horne (or really, “Horn”, I’m not sure why Beam spelled it incorrectly) was born about 1930 to David Alson Horn and Mattie Horn of Davie county.
most of what I can tell you about his early life is in the article above.
During his school years at Statesville High School it seems Horn’s magic “career” really took off. The newspapers show him all over the place. in Statesville, other cities in North Carolina, and even out of state.
Below are just a few examples from the newspapers.
In 1949, fresh out of high school, Horn would marry Margaret Ann Barham, the daughter of the reverend Joseph Barham and Julia McIver Barham at Bethany Presbyterian Church on Valentine’s Day.
By 1951, Raymond is attending Erskine college in South Carolina, but ends up graduating from Davidson College in 1953. He then attends Union Theological Seminary in 1957. Despite what he might have said in Beam’s article above, rather than becoming a lawyer or psychologist, Raymond Horn becomes a Presbyterian minister. Turns out, in addition to his magic career, Horn had also been preaching since at least 1950.
He would be ordained by the Concord Presbytery on July 9th, 1957 and would take up the pulpit at Second Presbyterian Church in Mooresville, which would later become Fieldstone and would remain there until 1962 when he would move to the pulpit of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Fort Myers, Florida. He would remain there for seven years, and his obituary would note that during that time the church grew from 40 people to 600.
Horn would become involved with Hollywood style entertainment again while in Florida and would go on to start “church-based” television programming and become the television director for the NC Council of Churches, producing an award winning documentary called “A Century At Central Prison“, a 1 hour program about the bad conditions at the 100 year old Central Prison in Raleigh. He also produced another called “The Now Generation in Chapel Hill High School” about the consolidation of a black and white high school into one student body.
Sometime in the 1970’s he “retired” from the ministry. Raymond and Margaret were divorced in 1971.
At a date I haven’t been able to discover, Raymond would eventually remarry a woman named Gloria Dudley.
After ministry, he went back to entertainment, getting involved with the television channels WGHP in High Point and WCTI in New Bern.
Somewhere in 70’s/80’s he moved to New York and worked on various shows including Showtime At The Apollo, his obituary noting that he “traveled the world” during those years working in television.
In 1992 he became the owner and operator of a low-power television station in Los Angeles’ Palmdale community called KPAL, which he managed until his death in 2002. The station played a lot of quirky stuff and had some interesting “public access” type programming, including it’s own own hosted horror show called Dumpsterpiece Theater, which was somewhere between Elvira and Mystery Science Theater 3000.
After Horn’s death, the station continued on, but struggled with programming and meeting FCC rules, shuttering somewhere between 2009 and 2012.
Horn wore a lot of hats during his life besides the one with the bunny in it. But I think it’s clear he was always an entertainer.
Thus far, I don’t know what became of Horn after death. I can’t find a grave listing, though I have an obituary and know there was a visitation at Wesley Memorial UMC in Statesville. I haven’t found anyone who can tell me, so at moment I’m tempted to believe he was probably cremated. If you know, I’d love to hear from you.
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