E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Former Three-Term Gov. Bruce King Dies at His Ranch at Age 85
By John Robertson And Leslie Linthicum
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal Of the Journal
Former Gov. Bruce King — a famously folksy and affable cowboy politician who seemed to know every voter in every corner of the state — was a big presence in New Mexico politics for 40 years.
"He was truly one of a kind," said former President Bill Clinton, a King friend for 30 years, and among the many people in New Mexico and nationally who mourned the death Friday of the three-time governor.
He was "a great governor and a wonderful man who used his homespun manner to demonstrate, and sometimes to hide, a razor-sharp mind and an amazing wit. Bruce was my generation's Will Rogers," Clinton said.
King, 85, died Friday morning at the family ranch near Stanley, in southern Santa Fe County. He had been weakened by heart problems and the death of his wife and political partner, Alice King, less than a year ago. They were married for 61 years.
Funeral services were pending.
"None of us in the family thought this day would come so soon after we lost my mom, Alice King, but we are comforted by the thought that Bruce and Alice can be together once again," said the Kings' younger son, New Mexico Attorney General Gary King.
Clinton, the former governor of Arkansas, said he always tried to sit near King at governors' meetings "knowing if I did I'd get a laugh and a lesson in life and politics."
"Bruce was one of those people whose presence changed a room," Lt. Gov. Diane Denish said.
"As soon as he walked in, his spirit seemed to expand until the room was filled with it and everywhere you looked, you saw that glittering smile, and a hand held out in friendship, and the greeting that countless New Mexicans have heard coming from him: 'How ya doin'?' And the thing of it is that he meant it."
Many friends
Former New Mexico House Speaker Raymond Sanchez said King "could take something that was very serious and make light of it in a way that people didn't get angry. He kept temperatures low, and in politics that was really valuable."
New Mexico's senior U.S. senator, Jeff Bingaman, said, "I had great respect for his commitment to public service, his integrity and his political skills. He was always trying to get a consensus, to take practical steps to improve the situation and deal with problems the state was experiencing. And he was always trying to help the average person."
"Bruce King is one of the greatest New Mexicans ever," former Gov. Garrey Carruthers told an audience of 350 people Thursday at the Marriott Pyramid in Albuquerque, on the night before King's death.
King had been scheduled to congratulate this year's winners of the New Mexico Distinguished Public Service Awards, along with Carruthers and former Govs. Toney Anaya and David Cargo, at the Marriott Pyramid, but was not feeling well.
Sunnier days
King, a Democrat, was elected to four-year terms as governor in 1970, 1978 and 1990. He also served as speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives and as a Santa Fe County commissioner.
He was born and raised on a farm and ranch in the Estancia Valley. He and brothers Sam King and Don King built the operation into King Brothers Ranches, based at Stanley, where most family members still live.
The former governor himself continued to live in his modest home at the ranch after his wife's death.
Alice King was a full-fledged partner of her husband in business life as well as public life and became well-known for her work in behalf of New Mexico children. She died in December 2008.
In addition to Gary King, survivors include older son and cattleman Bill King of Stanley, the former governor's brothers, four grandchildren and eight grandchildren.
"You can't dislike Bruce King," Frank Bond, a Santa Fe lawyer and former Republican legislator who ran unsuccessfully against King for governor in 1990, said in an interview years later. "He's always got a smile and a handshake. You know where he's from and that he cares about New Mexico."
Images of King barreling through the Roundhouse in trademark Lucchese boots, big head and shoulders thrust forward, ready to put an arm on any lawmaker or voter within reach, are legendary. So is his mangled rhetoric, uttered with an often-imitated, high-pitched drawl.
He governed when New Mexico coffers were enriched by oil, gas, coal and uranium. He was a teetotaling, churchgoing, lifelong New Mexican who sought political consensus and referred to the Legislature as his "board of directors." His own honesty was not called into question, and his administrations were mostly scandal-free.
He leaned left on most social issues and right on finance. He opposed "right-to-work" laws and legalized gambling. Organized labor was an ally, and he could usually count on the state's "Baptist Belt" as well.
Legacies of his three, nonconsecutive terms as governor include creation of New Mexico's large and enduring "rainy-day" funds, a Cabinet-level agency spearheaded by Alice King to help children and families and a formula for equally distributing public school money across the urban-to-rural state.
King's terms also saw establishment of kindergarten statewide, a public defender program and an environmental improvement agency.
But, by his third term, critics had begun to call him a caretaker governor and a vestige of good ol' boy politics.
His country-boy way of speaking, long-standing opposition to gambling and acceptance of a gasoline tax started to wear thin with new voters as suburban sprawl sprang from the high desert and New Mexico's population doubled from a million to nearly 2 million.
Woodpeckers and riots
The big cowboy loved the campaign trail, barging through county fairs, tiny rural towns and restaurants in election years, shaking every hand in the place, whether diner or dishwasher. New Mexicans laughed knowingly at big gatherings when King would devote half his time at the podium to greeting familiar faces around the room.
He was famous for his self-destructing syntax and muddled metaphors. He once told a state legislator that an amendment could "open up a whole box of Pandoras" and another time observed that "the best-laid plans of man sometimes go aft."
In King speeches, "fiscal" came out "physical" and "statutes" became "statues." He was likely to respond, "Fine, fine, fine," or "Good, good, good" to almost anything said.
New Mexicans got a kick out of his gripe to a reporter in 1971, upon moving into the Governor's Office and observing that his predecessor, Republican Gov. David Cargo, hadn't left many furnishings behind.
"He didn't leave a doggone thing but that one woodpecker," King drawled. Meanwhile, Cargo and journalists quickly noted that the wood carving in question was actually of a roadrunner, the New Mexico state bird.
Late in his career, the southern Santa Fe County rancher said his folksy style was "not as polished as some, but it seems to have served the situation well."
The lowest point of his political career, and perhaps of his life, came in February 1980 when the crowded and long-ignored Penitentiary of New Mexico south of Santa Fe exploded in a bloody, 36-hour riot. Prisoners killed 33 fellow inmates, burned buildings and brutalized corrections officers. King had to call out the National Guard.
"It was the hardest two days of my life," King once said.
The campaign trail
King came up through the political ranks starting in 1954, serving as a Santa Fe County commissioner, state representative and speaker of the House before winning his first term as governor in 1970.
In that first of several elections featuring men who would become giants of New Mexico politics, King defeated Republican Pete Domenici, who would go on to become New Mexico's longest-serving U.S. senator.
King won his second term in 1978 in a showdown with Joe Skeen of Picacho, another big-shouldered rancher and former legislator. King prevailed, but two years later, Skeen, as a write-in candidate, defeated a King nephew to win a U.S. House seat that he would hold for 20 years.
King outdistanced Frank Bond, from a prominent New Mexico ranching and mercantile family, in the 1990 race for a third term as governor.
King retired to his family's King Brothers headquarters ranch near Stanley after losing his final bid for the Governor's Office to a young newcomer, Republican Gary Johnson, in 1994.
After three terms as governor and 10 years in the Legislature, King left some political foes but remarkably few personal enemies.
King's last bid for governor, in 1994, failed after a fractious primary battle involving a primary election challenge from his lieutenant governor, Casey Luna, then a general election contest complicated by his former running mate, Roberto Mondragon, running as a Green Party candidate.
Some New Mexicans had grown weary of King's old-fashioned, sunny-side-up politics, but almost no one doubted the cowboy governor's good intentions.
Domenici, now retired, said in an interview a few years ago that he always counted King as a friend, calling him a "decent, wonderful man."
King summed up what had kept him active in a 2007 interview as he celebrated his 60th anniversary with Alice.
"The secret of life is to enjoy every day, one day at a time," he said. "There's no end to what can be done with a life if you use it right."
Journal staffers Dan Boyd, Michael Coleman and Mike Murphy contributed to this report.
You also can send comments via our comment form
|
|
