Within the first couple of weeks of moving to Odessa, Hannah Horick quickly found a like-minded community in the Ector County Democrats.
The 26-year-old East Texas native moved to the Permian Basin after she graduated from the University of North Texas with a major in political science and a minor in Spanish when she accepted an internship at the Crisis Center of West Texas.
Horick rose up the ranks of the Ector County Democrats and was named chair of the Ector County Democrats after the March 2020 Democratic primary and she took office on Aug. 3, 2020.
In June, Horick received statewide recognition when she was named president of the Texas Young Democrats.
“It’s important to me in two ways,” Horick said. “The first being that young people in Odessa can see that Odessa is politically relevant. You can be from Odessa and be an important political influence. I’m certainly not the first person to have statewide representation from the Democratic Party here and I hope not to be the last.
“Second, it’s important to show folks from outside of the city that you can be a young person from anywhere and do good work for whatever political organization you are a part of. ”
Horick expected to spend nine months to a year in the Permian Basin before leaving to pursue a graduate degree. That was nearly four years ago.
Once her internship at the Crisis Center of West Texas concluded, she accepted a full-time position as the nonprofit organization’s communication and development coordinator.
“After nine or 10 months of being here and being plugged in, there was no way I was leaving,” Horick said.
Horick said her position at the Crisis Center of West Texas is her job, while titles with the Ector County Democrats and Texas Young Democrats are her work. Horick explained the Crisis Center of West Texas helps keep her grounded in Odessa and grounded to the real world by helping folks in need. She said the political work is what she believes is the right thing to do.
While she was in high school, Horick helped form the first Young Democrats chapter at Tyler Robert E. Lee High School, which is now known as Tyler Legacy High School, in Tyler. She graduated from high school in 2013 and attended the University of North Texas where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in Spanish.
During her final semester at the University of North Texas, Horick worked fulltime in the Texas House of Representatives office. She said that knowledge she gained from college and working in the Texas House of Representatives office helped during her first meeting at the Ector County Democratic Headquarters.
“(Members of the Ector County Democratic Party) immediately appointed me as the communications director,” Horick said after she told the Ector County Democratic Party about her previous political experience. “Without knowing my name, I became an officer in the Ector County Democrats.”
Horick said she doesn’t see herself flipping Ector County from Republican to Democratic.
However, she explained the 2020 Election showed the Ector County Democrats there were 11,367 votes casted for Joe Biden in Ector County and more than 5.2 million throughout Texas. Horick said those voices deserve to be heard.
“I’m not under the impression that I’m going to flip our state house seat,” she said. “I’m not under the impression that we are going to be suddenly a blue county just because I work really hard. There are certain realities that I’m very aware of. There’s a lot of progress to be made.
“There are 11,000 people who voted for Joe Biden and for those 11,000 just because they are the political minority, they deserve a space. That is plenty of people to do good, to organize together, to win council seats and county commissioner seats.”
