Birth date: May 4, 1951 Death date: Mar 21, 2026
We are heartbroken to announce the passing of Greg Homer, known by many as "Mr. Homer" due to his longstanding career in education, on March 21, 2026. He passed suddenly and is survived by the many women in his life, including his Read Obituary
A true hero, loved by all. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife and children and everyone who had the opportunity to know how brilliant and wonderful he was, all of my love.
Charlotte, Madeline & Reiss Jackson
I had the good fortune of learning from many great teachers, but Greg Homer was the best. We idolized him. He was funny, inquisitive, genuinely interested in every student, and intense.
That last bit is what sticks with me the most. I think if you told a stranger that your grade school headmaster was intense, they might look at you like it was a bad thing—but that’s because they didn’t know Greg.
It has stayed with me all these years because it was a selfless intensity. He was always focused on the mission of helping his community and lifting up his students, both intellectually and spiritually. The outpouring of memories is a testament to how completely and consistently he lived that life.
In the last week, I’ve had so many memories of him come back to me, and I would love to write them all here. However, I know that Greg would want something more concise, so I’ll say this: I am now the father of three boys, and I hope that each one of them has a Greg Homer in their life.
To his family, I am so sorry for your loss. I appreciate your willingness to open the memorial to the community, and I know it meant a great deal to my family and everyone else who attended.
May his memory be a blessing to everyone who crossed his path; I know it will be for me.
“The Greeks said you can never step into the same river twice.” -Mr. Homer
Most of my childhood took place on a gravel playground near the Bogue Falaya River; then pine-canopied brick buildings off a highway. My childhood was my family, the animals, my friends, my teachers….and Mr. Homer. I have no childhood memory that is not tinged by his presence: mowing the lawn as the sun began to set; lifting backpacks for tiny hands; chewing on the ends of his glasses. To us, he was Socrates. He was Caesar. He was Shakespeare.
When I was small, I toted my books everywhere I went: poring over the lives of queens, of saints, of poets. I sat on the playground, listening to a fountain buried under ivy, and drifted far away from the Louisiana heat. I didn’t think anyone noticed. Mr. Homer did. As I got older, I realized that he always protected that space for me. He wanted me to read. He wanted me to dream. Even at age 30, the last time I saw him, he reminded me of this. He slipped books like “The Grapes of Wrath” into my hands. “What do you think?” he’d ask, waiting for my answer. Me, a ten-year-old. He listened intently as I talked about turtles and Ma Joad.
Ages four through fourteen, when I was a student at CES, I watched him listen. He listened as the smallest Kindergartner told him about their art project. He listened as a pre-adolescent boy, hurt and confused, lashed out in rage. I watched Mr. Homer kneel in front of crying students: gripping their hands and soothing them with a gentle ferocity. The look of relief when they realized that someone was seeing them, truly seeing them, in their moment of pain. Sometimes, with my own students, I hear my voice slip into that same register. Greg Homer taught me how to be present. How to stay present.
So many stories, spun from year to year. “Do you remember how we would call his mom for her birthday during class? Do you remember how he got upset and broke the rocking chair? Do you remember when…?” Just the other day, weaving around our kitchen, Bryant and I screamed, “1215…limits on the King!” This was how Mr. Homer taught us to remember the date of the signing of the Magna Carta.
Recently, I watched the recording of our 7th grade graduation from CES. We were thirteen-years-old. We were already a class united by grief and by hope. Mr. Homer stands in front of us. He refers to us as “the river of life behind him, ready to rush out those doors.” I think of him as the unmovable boulder in the river’s channel, crusted with lichen. As we rushed through those doors, into the rest of our lives, our current passed around him. Each droplet of water touched by his presence.
In the recording, he goes on to say that we don’t know where the river comes from; we don’t know where the river goes. And if anyone has the answer…he doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t say it with vehemence. He wants to remain open to the mystery.
This weekend, there is a memorial for Mr. Homer on the banks of the Bogue Falaya. I imagine all of us there, watching as the water disappears around the bend. Watching as it passes beneath our feet and the roots of the water oaks. Not the same river, just as the Greeks said. A new river, unending and eternal.
Thank you, Mr. Homer. Thank you for your watchfulness, your care, your kindness, your solidity. You are the river, unending and eternal.
Mr. Homer was my principal at Cabrini high school for the 4 years I was there. We had a great class and sisterhood and contribute it to his leadership. We all loved him dearly. Rest in peace Mr. Homer. Melissa Brossett
Mr. Homer taught me so many things. How to sharpen an axe. What makes the world go round. Which fights were worth the detentions, and which were just performance. Which snakes were venomous and which were safe. The value of the words spoken, the written word, and silence, respectively. When to push, and when to back off. He set the standard of care and respect owed to every single person that I hold to this day, and he did it by offering me—from my shaky-legged Kindergarten days through my thirties—exactly, unceasingly, the same care and respect he offered to every single person who set foot in his school. Across teachers, parents, board members, janitors, bus drivers, us lucky students, he set the bar exactly where it needed to be set.
He taught me that “kind”, “right”, and “good” are not always the same as “nice”, and when it comes down to it, to always, always, always be kind.
From the first time I saw it, this monologue in Doctor Who has made me think of him:
“I do what I do because it’s right! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind. It’s just that. Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point in any of this at all, but it’s the best I can do, so I’m going to do it. […] Maybe we can help, a little. Why not, just at the end, just be kind?”
I remember him knee-deep in muddy water, changing his shirt right before the start of class. I remember him in his small old office: the headmaster squeezed in right by reception, with nowhere to escape from a parent with complaints or a student hopped up on sugar. I remember him yelling across the yard, and I remember him at my eye-level back in first grade, soft with concern. He made me feel so safe.
I remember him, always, at Christ Episcopal School. For all that he was bigger than his bones, for all that he was immortalized in every blade of grass at CES long before now, he was a little intangible everywhere else to many of us. I last saw him at my brother’s wedding in 2022, just briefly. He told me he was proud of me. There are few people whose opinions matter more.
