Noteworthy graduates: Pastor Horace Michael

Jordan’s river “is deep and wide,” as the African-American spiritual goes. Pastor Horace Michael’s roots in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant are also deep and wide, touching many families and several generations.

A student at PS 93, then at JHS 194, Michael graduated from Boys and Girls HS in 1979 and won a UFT Shanker Scholarship award. His childhood mentor, Bishop Wilbur L. Jones Sr., was honored by the UFT last year at the Beulah Church for his decades of community leadership and fighting for quality education and social justice. Michael carries on the tradition at the affiliate church, Beulah Tabernacle.

As a youth he gave his heart to the bishop’s daughter, and many years later, as her husband, gave her his kidney.

“It was a match! We were blessed,” says the Pentecostal apostolic pastor who, after expressing his thanks to the heavens, remembers a teacher who had him reach for the stars.

Spirituality came upon me when I was 12 years old. My siblings and I loved getting up early on the weekends to play outside with our friends. Our parents, who came from religious homes, felt we needed to go to Sunday school before we went out to play and sent us down the block to a neighborhood church.

Soon it became a choice for us. I have a brother who is also a minister, a sister who has been active in the church her whole life and a younger brother who is a deacon!

When I think of those days at church, a teacher who comes to mind was our music teacher, Mr. Pierre, whose influence opened up the idea of music to us, and my brother and I became musicians in our church. He played the organ and I played the drums.

From elementary school, I will never forget Ms. Romer. God bless her, she was a most kind and gentle person and always made me feel comfortable in school. Obviously when children are feeling safe they are much more open to learning than if they’re feeling tense and anxious.

In high school I was absolutely influenced by my gym teacher and fencing coach, Mr. Stern. When the school was called Boys HS it had a fencing team, and there were trophies and old photos of the team on display.

I was intrigued and asked about the sport and was told there was no longer a fencing team because there really wasn’t much interest.

But Mr. Stern taught us the fundamentals of the sport, and my interest was really piqued. So he encouraged me, telling me if I could drum up interest the school might consider reviving the team. He told me everything I needed to do to make it happen, and I made it happen. So we became the revived Boys and Girls HS Fencing Club! I became captain, and the cocaptain and I went on to the finals.

One of our rival teams was Brooklyn Tech where my twin brother went. When our teams were facing each other onstage, the Brooklyn Tech coach, thinking I was my brother, called out to me, “Herman, what are you doing on the opposite team!”

So we had fun as twins, but we were both good guys and so we didn’t have an evil twin situation!

Through elementary, junior high and high school I was so positively influenced by the men and women who taught me that I’m sure it resulted in my being a teacher as well. I’ve been a Sunday school teacher for 25 years, teaching teens and adults, and have been a Bible school teacher and dean of the Bible school.

You know, I remember in junior high — I was absolutely influenced by Ms. Isom. She was my Spanish teacher and a very, very strong woman. She was a female role model of strength, indeed. You had to straighten up and fly right. She wasn’t taking it. Some adults would be satisfied if you just did what was required, but she went beyond that and instilled in me the idea of doing better than average, of really reaching for the stars.

— as told to reporter Ellie Spielberg