The once and future king

New Mexico Business Journal, Nov, 1996 by Wally Gordon

To pass from downtown Albuquerque into the world of Alice and Bruce King, you drive east on Interstate 40, north on a two-lane country route, west on a gravel road, then north on a dirt lane, past a huge dead snake coiled in the road, between meandering cows, by horizonless fields of waist-high corn and alfalfa, through a white board fence to a 21-year-old unpretentious home on the range.

But all these appearances of bucolic timelessness are deceptive. The alfalfa fields are growing houses. Cows are being displaced by subdivisions. Some of the water that irrigates 9,000 acres of corn is ready to be diverted to keep a planned 27-hole golf course green.

The contradictions between past and present, continuity and change that shape the vast King empire are equally at the heart of the state that King himself has had much to do with shaping over the last generation.

As speaker of the House of Representatives in the 1960s, president of the 1969 State Constitutional Convention and three-term governor, he has probably witnessed and made more history than any contemporary New Mexican.

Today in reluctant retirement after defeat at the hands of Gary Johnson in 1994, King, like his state, seems torn - torn between delight in the tranquil life he leads and regret for the larger world eluding him, torn between pride in accomplishment and sad acknowledgment of the state's stubbornly persistent shortcomings, torn between a life of viewing the future as an improvement on the past and acknowledgment that much good has faded along with the bad.

Dole's Contemporary

The 72-year-old King passionately disputes the contention of his almost precise contemporary, Bob Dole, that the past represents a golden age to which society should strive to return. "I don't agree with that at all," King emphasized during a two-hour interview at his ranch. "The great and good days are the present, and they are continuing to show improvement."

His wife Alice, who sat in on about half the interview, added, "I think for most people the good days are now. We certainly expect more. Most people have health insurance and Social Security and make more money and have better houses. The crime rate is higher, but that's about the only thing worse."

Bouncing the ball back and forth as is the couple's wont, the former governor resumes, "The educational system has changed tremendously - we do a much better job of making education available to the people of New Mexico than we did 20 years ago. There are a lot more opportunities, the change from the ABCs to the computers."

Turning to another area, he says that "when I was governor in the '70s, the state had $1 billion in savings." Now the figure is $7 billion, the third largest endowment in the world.

Over and over again he reiterates his theme, "Everything's changed tremendously." He recalls that two decades ago Albuquerque had only two public meeting places; now such venues are innumerable.

He goes on, "In 1976 it was totally agricultural in this area. Now you see a lot of growth." Edgewood has gone from nothing to a substantial community straddling three counties. New subdivisions, including one being built by King himself in Cedar Grove, are dotting the horizon. The Moriarty school district has grown from 1,000 students to 5,000.

Some things, though, never seem to change. New Mexico today is the third poorest state, with the third highest unemployment and a greater dependence on federal money than anywhere outside the Washington metropolitan area. Similarly in 1976, the state received more federal aid than any other state and had a lower per capita income than any state except Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and South Carolina. Another constant has been concern over crime. Even in 1976, headlines bemoaned an increase in serious crime of 11.5 percent.

Important Growth

On the other hand, in the 1970s the state's most important products were uranium and oil. And in the intervening decades, the state has added a 33rd county, a third congressman and half a million people.

Time and again the Kings return to the subject of crime. It is clearly something that both troubles and confuses them. Both he and his wife disapprove of the Johnson administration's emphasis on punishment at the expense of rehabilitation and prevention. "Ninety-eight percent of prisoners get out," he says pointedly. "What Alice was trying to do," he adds, "was a prevention operation...to prevent so many people from falling into the category of criminals." They clearly are saddened that no one in government is continuing her crusade as first lady (which she is now pursuing by organizing a private foundation) to help kids before they become thugs. "You can't just give up," he says, "and you can't just put them in the correctional system."

But King exhibits a philosophical streak now that he has taken a step back from the political fray. "Family values, moral values have declined," he says, "but the pendulum swings, just because they've been declining doesn't mean they're going to keep on declining."