Former Inquirer reporter Carol Horner

Former Inquirer reporter Carol Horner, 63, a popular newsroom spark plug, party planner extraordinaire, and respected journalist, was found dead in her Washington home Friday.

A cause of death had not been determined.

Ms. Horner, the director of the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland since 2000, had been battling debilitating migraines for months. Friends and coworkers said she was suffering from another headache Thursday.

"Carol was one of the most remarkable people I have ever known," said Thomas Kunkel, former dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at Maryland. "She was an amazing journalist but also just a great spirit."

As head of the center, she brought journalists to College Park for weeklong programs led by experts on specialized topics, such as nuclear energy and the business of sports.

Ms. Horner's death left friends and relatives reeling.

"It was startling news to all of us," Eugene L. Roberts, a former executive editor of The Inquirer, journalism professor at Maryland, and longtime friend, said yesterday. "She was probably the most alive person on The Inquirer."

A native of Richmond, Va., and a 1967 graduate of the College of William and Mary, Ms. Horner started out teaching English in North Carolina and Virginia. After earning a master's degree in journalism from American University, she landed a reporting job at the Record of Bergen County in New Jersey in 1973.

She wrote editorials at the former Philadelphia Bulletin and joined The Inquirer's reporting staff in early 1979.

"She was a good writer, and her enthusiasm for reporting came through in everything she did," Roberts said.

During her 15 years at The Inquirer, Ms. Horner covered Frank Rizzo's political comeback attempt in the 1983 mayor's race against W. Wilson Goode and served for a time as The Inquirer's New England correspondent. Her profiles included country-music star Randy Travis and Doug Wilder, Virginia's first black governor. Rizzo's widow, Carmella, invited Ms. Horner to come to her Chestnut Hill home for an interview on what would have been the couple's 50th wedding anniversary.

"Carol to me really represented the best in the spirit of The Inquirer of the 1980s and early 1990s," said William K. Marimow, executive editor of The Inquirer, who had known Ms. Horner for many years.

"She was an A-plus colleague who really represented the esprit de corps of the newsroom in the Roberts era. And she was a top journalist to boot."

Former colleagues recalled Ms. Horner's writing flair, tenacity and evenhanded reporting.

"She was always fair to people about whom she wrote, and she had a sense of empathy that radiated to people and encouraged to open up to her," recalled James M. Naughton, a former Inquirer executive editor and retired president of the Poynter Institute in Florida.

Ms. Horner left The Inquirer in 1994 to become an editor at the Wall Street Journal's Washington office.

She was known for her warm, outgoing personality and her ability to plan parties, organize celebrations, and pull off practical jokes.

"She was sort of the center of life in our newsroom," Roberts recalled. "Whatever was afoot, Carol was in the middle of it."

Ms. Horner spent months planning an elaborate retirement party for him in 1990. She also organized an Inquirer reunion that drew more than 325 former and current staffers in July.

"Carol Horner was not merely the life of the party. She was the soul of the party," Naughton said.

Ms. Horner is survived by her father, Overton Jones; her stepmother, Kathryn H. Jones; a sister, Vivian "Vee" J. Davis; stepbrothers Bryan Jones and Gary Jones; a nephew; and a niece.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete.