King was born at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, to Randall and Willa Rockhill. He grew up in nearby Renton, Wash., where he attended Sartori Grade School and Renton High School, graduating in 1959. He was an honor student, played trumpet in the band under his father’s direction, and turned out for track. In his sophomore year of high school, he met Alice Temple who later became his wife of 62 years.
King attended the University of Washington and was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity where he majored in history while playing bridge and attending ROTC. He married Alice on March 17, 1962, and then attended Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, N.J., to become a lifelong United Methodist Church (UMC) Minister. During seminary, daughter Wendelyn was born in 1964 and King served in a student church in Dingman’s Ferry, Pa. In 1965, he served as associate minister at Haller Lake UMC under Larry Linnamen. Son Jason was born in 1967.
In 1968, King was assigned to the Garfield/Farmington churches in eastern Washington. This charge, off and on, extended to forty-six years. During that time King served on the Whitman County Mental Health Board, on the staff at Washington State University’s Koinonia House, studied and taught at WSU while working on a Ph.D. in history, taught religion at University of Idaho, organized the construction of LaDow Court Assisted Living under a newly created hospital district, was associate director of Pastoral Institute, and the first director of Rural Ministries Resources (RMR) along with LIMPOP (limited population) small church ministry. He continued to play trumpet in multiple bands, was president of the Appaloosa Museum board, and performed hundreds of weddings with panache, storytelling and celebrations of love. He retired in 2004 and moved to Harvard, where he became a gentleman farmer and logger, riding Appaloosa horses and raising organic beef. King was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2015. He and Alice moved back to the Seattle area, building a house on Whidbey Island in 2016. This allowed them to be closer to family including his children and grandchildren. He died in Memory Care on Friday, March 22, 2024.
King is survived by his wife Alice; daughter Wendy and her husband Joe, grandson Tristan Alving and his wife Jamie; son Jason and his wife Carol, grandson Tyler and partner Corinne, and grandson Alex and wife Pearl and great-grandsons Wally and Magnus; as well as King’s sister Shari Fisher and her daughters and granddaughters.
King will be remembered for his compassion, his engaging personality and preaching, his love of music and his willingness to serve. He and Alice enjoyed a life of many blessings, including a loving and supportive family, good friends, wide ranging travel experiences and a long marriage.
A celebration of his life will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 18, at Haller Lake United Methodist Church, 13055 First Ave. NE, Seattle. Live streaming/Zoom will be available.
In lieu of flowers, please contribute to a humanitarian cause of your choice.
