Bella McManus

Chinook Writer 

Nolan Hornecker, an agricultural business and GIS (geographic information system) major and the graduation speaker this year, wears a belt buckle with his family brand on it, passed down from his grandfather to his father, and now to him. The “shining cross” on the buckle— a cross with two beams of light shining from it— represents their family and Christian values.  

“I’ve got a lot of belt buckles, but this one means by far the most to me… it’s my own personal brand,” Hornecker explained. “It’s who I am and who I’m trying to be.”  

Hornecker is on his family’s brand registration with his father, Heath Hornecker, an agriculture instructor at CC. Being on the registration means that Hornecker will one day inherit its use. He plans to use it to continue running his own ranch like his family is currently doing. Heath said Nolan grew up around livestock and always expressed interest in the industry. Hornecker said his dad has always been a big role model to him.

“I look up to both my parents, but I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with my dad being at the college here.  I look up to what he does and the things he’s going out and doing… I look up to that and I want to have that ambition with the things that I want to do in my future,” Hornecker said. 

Hornecker’s GIS instructor, and CC’s interim Dean of the School of Science, Jeff Sun said that Hornecker is working on getting his FFA drone license to use in his future career. 

“You can tell he’s interested and likes it because he turns in good work,” Sun said.

In a personalized class project last fall, Sun said, Hornecker worked with a group of students to fly drones over the college’s ranch and map out the hayfields.  

Hornecker said he’s always enjoyed maps and geography, and he said they are becoming much more prominent in the ag world. He’s looking forward to using his GIS degree and his ag business degree simultaneously, and he thinks it would be cool to use drones to spray seeds and fertilizer. 

As well as always having been interested in agriculture and geography, Heath said that growing up, Nolan enjoyed sports. He played football and baseball, participated in wrestling, and enjoyed skiing. Baseball was his big sport.  

Heath explained that his son loved the strategic side of the sport somewhat more than the athletic side and always enjoyed thinking about the statistics and technique that went into a game.  

“He likes to think of sports more like a chess game… It’s been fun to watch the mental side of that,” his dad explained. 

He said that Nolan carried this interest into his academic work as well, using strategy to do enough work to get the highest letter grade without having to get the highest percentage. 

After graduation, Hornecker plans to continue his schooling at a university. He said he’s loved his time at CC, especially the basketball games and rodeos, but he’s ready to get out of the wind. In the meantime, Hornecker said he will work over the summer building maps and doing data analysis for a local pipeline. “I think things happen for a reason. I think opportunities fall in place where they see fit,” Hornecker said about his time at Casper College.  

The graduation speaker said he wouldn’t change anything about his life or what brought him to where he is today, and the one piece of advice he would give to his younger self would be to enjoy his years in school and the people around him. 

“Enjoy it while you can because… it’s been a quick two years and graduation’s here in a month…. It’s gone quick,” he said.  

Hornecker certainly took his own advice and made the most of his time not just at Casper College, but in every aspect of his life. Using his two majors, he found a way to connect his education to his interests and the work he values.