For Dan Horn, an invitation to President Jimmy Carter’s funeral brought mixed feelings. Horn, the principal of St. Genevieve Parish Schools in Panorama City, was honored to receive an invitation to pay his respects to the person who was the 39th president, as well as someone he got to know after years of visits and was privileged to call him his friend. He will be attending the state funeral at Washington National Cathedral on Thursday, Jan. 9. President Joe Biden will deliver a eulogy. Horn received the following emailed invitation: “The Carter Family invites you to attend the National Funeral Service for President Jimmy Carter at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC.” Dan Horn, president-principal of St. Genevieve Parish Schools in Panorama City, poses at The Carters wall at the high school on Thursday, February 23, 2023. The school has a long standing relationship with the Carters which began when Horn wrote to former First Lady Rosalynn Carter after reading her autobiography. Horn will attend Jimmy Carter’s funeral in Washington, DC on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025.(Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) While waiting for his Uber at Reagan National Airport in Washington on Tuesday morning to take him to claim his ticket, Horn spoke about his emotions and his grieving over the loss of the longest-living president, whom he got to know personally. “I have mixed feelings,” he said. “I feel incredibly honored. I am very sad the world has lost a hero. To me, my friend was a hero.” On Dec. 30, Horn told this newspaper his initial emotions included feeling the loss of someone he had visited and who in return had visited the Panorama City schools numerous times over the years, all the while building a unique relationship. The schools include a preschool, elementary school and high school. But his sadness was also for the country, which Horn said lost a leader who respected others, who dedicated his life both during and after his presidency toward peace and lifting up people in the poorest parts of the world. “Our world is not going to be the same. Jimmy Carter was a tremendous moral compass for the country,” Horn said. Former President Jimmy Carter views the Carter Wall at St. Genevieve High School in Panorama City, Tuesday, February 19, 2013. (Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer) The one-of-a-kind relationship started when Horn read the former first lady Rosalynn Carter’s biography in 1984. She responded to a letter he wrote her, inviting him to visit her in Atlanta. When Carter visited their school in 2010 while on tour to promote his new book, “White House Diary,” the former president asked: “Can anybody guess what is my favorite high school in America?” Sometimes, visits to the Carters in George would include 80 or more students and faculty members from St. Genevieve High School to tiny Plains, whose population has hovered in recent years between 500 and 800 people. The residents of the hamlet put them up in their homes, cooked them dinner and treated them warmly as part of the community, Horn said. Students at St. Genevieve Parish Schools celebrate former President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday with an assembly, which was recorded for Carter, at the Panorama City school on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. The school has had a long standing relationship with the Carters. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) “I am also grateful to our (students at the schools) who represented themselves so well over the years,” Horn said on Tuesday. On Tuesday, Jan. 14 at 10 a.m. the schools will conduct a prayer service for the late president at the high school gym at 13967 Roscoe Blvd., Los Angeles 91402. And at the end of the month a Mass will be held for Carter at the school, Horn said. No date has yet been set. Former and current U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to the Carter detail, carry the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter, at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool) Funeral services began this past weekend in Georgia at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, Ga. The motorcade carrying the president’s remains then went to Carter’s hometown of Plains, Georgia, and paused briefly in front of the family’s farm. On Tuesday, Jan. 7, the body of President Carter lay in state at the U.S. Capitol. His casket was  carried by military body bearers into the Rotunda, where members of Congress paid their respects. The public could also pay their respects from 7 p.m. to midnight Eastern Time. The Associated Press contributed to this article. Related links Watch live: Jimmy Carter’s state funeral in Washington, D.C. | AP News This Panorama City school had a relationship ‘unlike any other’ with the Carters For Southern California principal, after decades of visits, loss of Jimmy Carter hits hard Panorama City school celebrates former President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday Jimmy Carter’s public service heralded by Southern California community, politicos