Funeral Plans Announced for Former New Mexico Governor Bruce King; Recollections Roll In

KRQE talks to locals in Moriarty about King

The King family has announced funeral plans for former New Mexico Governor Bruce King, who passed away early Friday at age 85 in Stanley, New Mexico.

Bruce King will lie in state at the NM State Capitol in Santa Fe on Friday, November 20, 2009 from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Funeral Services will be on Saturday, November 21, 2009 at the Moriarty High School Gymnasium at 10:00 AM, with Reverend Dr. Russell C. Lee, Lutheran Pastor officiating.

The New York Times published a piece on King's passing and his long career in politics, including a list of some of King's accomplishments:

He created a state environmental agency; established a public defender program; signed the toughest mine-cleanup law in the country; created annual statewide arts awards; and consolidated children’s services in the state into a cabinet-level agency, the Children, Youth and Families Department.

The article also provided this tidbit:

Mr. King was born just outside Stanley, on the high plains east of Albuquerque, on April 6, 1924, the third child of Bill and Mollie Sue King, Texans who arrived in New Mexico in 1918 to visit friends and traded their Model T Ford for a 160-acre homestead.

The Santa Fe New Mexican published an farewell editorial about Bruce King, and included this observation by the former Governor about politicking:

"There were two keys to getting elected back then," King told biographer Poling: "One was a lot of people-to-people contact. The other was always attending the county political meetings ..." He and Alice tended to show up half an hour early, "because that's when you got to do your electioneering."

To my mind, we could use a lot more of that kind of outreach in today's political scene, which relies so much on raising money from bigwigs to pay for negative TV ads about your opponent -- that drive voters absolutely bananas during election season. Having attended many county and state party functions, I can tell you that we rarely see many of our elected officials or candidates unless they need something. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part too many power Dems avoid Party events like the plague -- a sad commentary on Party loyalty and just plain respect for the rank and file Dems who do all the grunt work to keep the Party functioning.

Additional coverage of Bruce King's legacy can be found in the Las Cruces Sun-News, the Clovis News Journal and the Portales News-Tribune.