Dr. John E. King

COLUMBIA - Beloved teacher, distinguished administrator, and Navy veteran of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Dr. John E. King, 94, died Saturday, June 28, in a Midlands hospital.

While president of Emporia State University, 1953-66, Dr. King developed a program that became a national model for making campuses accessible to the physically challenged prior to the federal mandates. He is a former superintendent of Presbyterian mission schools for Paiute, Papago, and Navajo youth in Arizona. While president of the University of Wyoming at Laramie, Dr. King moved courageously to end segregationist practices.

As one of his colleagues at the University of South Carolina, where he served as interim dean of the Department of Higher Education until retirement, often noted: “John wants everybody to be able to go to school, perhaps because he himself was the first person in his own immediate family to finish high school.”

For these career achievements, in 2006 his alma mater, the University of North Texas in Denton, presented him with an honorary doctorate recognizing his lifelong commitment to greater access to a college education for students from rural backgrounds, minorities, and the physically challenged.

King commanded a PT boat in the Pacific theater and was present aboard the destroyer USS Hyde during surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay. He retired from the United States Naval Reserve in l973 with the rank of Commander .

Dr. King leaves his wife of seventy-one years, Glennie Beanland King, in West Columbia.

John E. King, Jr., was born in Oklahoma City in 1913, the son of John Ethelbert and Iosa Koontz King. He received a BA from North Texas State University in l932, a Master’s Degree from the University of Arkansas in 1937, and a Ph.D. in Higher Education from Cornell University in 1941. He served as Provost and then President of the University of Minnesota in Duluth 1947-53, and from 1953 until 1966 as President of Emporia State Teachers College (now Emporia State University). Other posts include teaching high school Latin and coaching baseball in Frisco, Texas; advisor to the Civilian Conservation Corps in Ozone, Arkansas; mentoring the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, Washington, D.C.; life trustee, University of the Ozarks, Clarksville, Arkansas; and editing “Work and the College Student” (1967), and “Money, Marbles and Chalk” (1978). He was professor and chairman for the Department of Higher Education, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale from l967 until l983.

Dr. King was a life member of the National Education Association, and a member of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, Rotary, Blue Key, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Lambda Chi Alpha.

John and Glennie belong to Providence Presbyterian Church, West Columbia.

In addition to Mrs. King, survivors include daughters Ann Reynolds, Ph.D., and her husband, Tom Kirschbaum, M.D., of Key West, FL, and New York City, and Rebecca Stevens, Esq., and her husband, James E., Esq., of White Oak Creek, TN; grandchildren Nekki Shutt, Esq., and her partner Sheila Clause of Columbia; Rachel Reynolds, Ph.D., and her husband Steve McCall (and their daughter, Cora) of Philadelphia, PA; John Shutt, Ph.D., and his wife, Michelle, (and their daughter, Katie) of Louisville, KY, and Rex Reynolds and his wife, Courtney, (and their daughter, Alexa) of New York City.

Family members attending from out of town include Charles and Margo Rice of Gunter, TX; Laurana Mitchelmore of LeVesinet, France; Kenneth Beanland, Esq., of San Antonio, TX; Caryn and Richard Lee of Charlotte, NC, and Jon Shutt of Tampa, FL.

Visitation will take place this evening from six until eight at Thompson Funeral Home, 200 State Street, West Columbia. Memorial services will be held at Providence Presbyterian Church, Hummingbird Lane, West Columbia, Tuesday, July 1, at 11 a.m., Dr. Mike Bragan officiating.

www.thompsonsfuneral.com