In Memory

W. Lynes King (Teacher)

W. Lynes King (Teacher)

W. Lynes King taught Debate, World History, 20th Century History.

Walter Lynes King

Walter Lynes King of Marysville, Washington, passed away on August 31, 1977 at the age of 62.  He was born on March 23, 1915.  He married Virginia Grace (Carson) King, R.N. in 1940 whom he met at Swedish Hospital.  After strokes disabled Lynes in 1973, Virginia cared for him at home until his death in 1977.  Virginia died peacefully on April 26, 2013 at age 99, surrounded by family at her home of 63 years.

Lynes enlisted as an officer in the Navy on February 11, 1941 and was a LCDR and served in the South Pacific.  Following the war, Lynes and Virginia moved to Everett and opened King's Freeze, an ice cream parlor noted for both quality and innovative flavors. In 1948 they moved to Marysville and established an egg ranch on the King Farm, in the family since 1918. Nearby King Creek is named in honor of the farm and family.  In 1959, Lynes began a teaching career in Edmonds School District.

Lynes and Virginia are survived by their children, Jeffrey King (Jessie Kitts) of Portland, Priscilla (Rod) MacMillan of Portland, Mary Sweet of Woodinville and Thomas King (Stacey Gleason) of Marysville; grandchildren, James, Jeffrey and Patrick Sweet, Anthony, Christopher and Michelle King.

Lynes was interred in Willamette National Cemetery in Portland, Oregon on September 15, 1977.

Information about Walter Lynes King was gleaned from Virginia Grace Carson King’s obituary Published in The Herald (Everett) from May 4 to May 5, 2013

- See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/heraldnet/obituary.aspx?pid=164609409#sthash.6YH3d52N.dpuf



 
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03/18/15 01:13 PM #1    

Stan Stebing

Mr. King was my sophomore World History teacher.  He was an excellent teacher and ran a tight class.  After learning about him from his wife's obituary I know why.  I don't remember about him ever saying anything about his military service, ice cream store, or egg farm.  Like most people, there was more to know about him than we learned as his students.


03/18/15 02:03 PM #2    

Vicky Looney (Roberts)

I remembered him as a music teacher! I saw him somewhere in the early 70's when my children were very young. He did not remember me but he had a lot of students! He was 2 years younger than my dad and I had no idea what an interesting past he had!
Vicky Roberts.

03/20/15 01:00 AM #3    

Kevin Cloud Brechner

Mr. King was one of the best teachers i ever had.   As I recall he taught history at Meadowdale Junior High and then moved with us to MHS when it opened the first year.  I had him as a teacher for at least three years in world history, speech, and debate.  He always accompanied us on debate and speech team trips around the region.  He was like a mother hen the way he looked after us.   Like Stan, I never heard anything about his private life.  Maybe because I didn't bother to ask him.    He was incredibly dedicated to his students and he cared deeply about our welfare.   He lived in an earlier generation and seemed to have a European demeanor, and maybe a hint of an accent, which wasn't the rock and roll youth revolutionary world that we kids were experiencing.   Our world seemed foreign to him.  I am so happy to read about what his world was, and to see and learn about his wife and family.  All I knew of it was that he lived in Marysville. But he cared.   He was highly ethical, very bright, and knowledgeable about world history.  I learned a lot of geography from him as well.

 He taught us how to stand up in front of strangers and speak clearly, concisely, and to the point.  As the debate coach, he taught us how, on almost any controversial issue, you can find valid points on either side of the debate to defend.  At debate tournaments, we were required to be able to argue either side of the national debate topic.  As I remember it, our junior year was whether or not to legalize abortion.  Our senior year, the debate topic argued by all the state high school debate teams was whether the federal government should enact legislation making arbitration compulsory in basic industries.  When the school years started I didn't know much about either topic.   Mr. King taught us how to research the topic and define the issues, then find the fundamental arguments underlying each side of the debate.   Then we built cases defending each side with facts and statistics to support the arguments.   He taught us how to attempt to collapse the arguments of the opposing debate team by identifying the pillars of their arguments and undermining them by showing their basic assumptions were invalid or untrue.  

It was a team sport and Mr. King taught us how to work with a partner, dividing up the arguments and attacks.  It was verbal warfare.  Two speakers on each side.   I was lucky to be teamed with Sue McAdams, Bob Samuelson, Barbara Norman and others as partners   With the right arguments and facts you could take down the other team.   Mr. King always emphasized that we had to learn to "think on our feet."  I was only moderally successful at it, but the lessons stayed with me long beyond high school and have served me well in many business meetings.  I will always feel indebted to Mr. King for all the fine things he did for me and a lot of other students.  


03/20/15 09:40 AM #4    

Barbara Sparks (Spofford)

Like Kevin, I too had Mr. King as a teacher, starting at Meadowdale Jr. High in 8th grade, and every year after that through my junior year.  In the junior high days, he shared personal experiences frequently.  He spoke of his mother and when she got her long hair cut into a 'bob' for the first time, when she started to smoke, and the effect this had on the family.  After he graduated from high school, he left home and 'rode the rails', telling of the time he was sitting in an open doorway and a fellow rider cautioned him that if the train screeched to a sudden stop, the door may slam shut and cut off his legs.  He knew of stills in the woods as a kid.

It didn't take long for we students to realize that if the curriculum of the day was boring, a question could lead him into a whole new topic.  At the end of his discussion, he would say 'but I digress.'  While studying many topics having to do with nations in conflict, he would talk about the poor people in a society, and the way to their support and loyalty was to make sure they were well fed.  He would grab his abdomen with both hands, and say "beans in the belly" with great emphasis.

I probably remember these things because I heard them so frequently.

I was in his contemporary history class when Kennedy was shot, and for the first time ever I saw him without words.  I remember when over the PA system the news announced that possibly LBJ had suffered a heart attack, Mr. King put his own hand to his chest.  I think he would have wept right then had he been alone.

I have always considered Mr. King to be a wonderful educator.  What he taught by going outside the box has stuck with me alll these years.  Don't sit admiring the view unless the door is locked open.  There is more in the woods than trees.  What one does personally may affect others.  Food is a wonderful thing to share.  Be a role model, even though your heart is breaking.


03/21/15 07:15 PM #5    

Kevin Cloud Brechner

Hi Barbara,

Thank your for those stories.   You jogged my faulty memory, especially remembering the warning about dangling your legs outside of an open box car.  I remember the remedy being to wedge something into the door so it wouldn't slam shut if the train suddenly halted.

The Class of 65 is talking about Mr. King today also. John Mills left a wonderful memory.   Risking copyright infringement I will copy his comment below, along with another memory I had about what Mr. King taught me.    I would love to copy yours on the Class of 65 website too it if is alright because the world should know what a great person he was.  

 

Note to Stan Stebing  who is probably reading these:   If you could figure out a way to combine the websites for the Classes of 65,66, and 67, then we would all be right back in high school again.  LOL. without the attendance and grading requirements however.

The following is from the MHS Class of 65 Website:

 
03/20/15 03:08 PM #2    

John Mills (Class of 65)

Mr. King was tops!  A truly inspirational teacher. In addition to his classes at Meadowdale High School he mentored the Debate Team and Public Speaking Group after school.  One of our events was at a college in Tacoma.

Mr. King always infused a personal element into his teaching.  He was so cool that way.  One of his asides that I remember best was that he worked for a "jeweler" as a way of putting himself through school.  He was getting engaged at the time and asked his employer about purchasing a wedding ring set.  Mr. King said he got an incredible deal.  Soon afterwards F.B.I. agents approached Mr. King on the street, when he was transporting jewelry.  The agents informed Mr. King that they were investigating his employer and "asked" Mr. King for his cooperation in collecting evidence.  His boss eventually was arrested and convicted.

Here's the kind of individual Mr. King was... He realized that the engagement ring that his bought was probably stolen, like the other items his boss sold.  After much thought Mr. King told the agents the history about his fiance's ring.  The agents informed Mr. King they appreciated his honesty, but that he could indeed keep the ring without any questions.  He said he was so releaved.  He didn't want to have to explain the situation to his fiance.  I think this related to being truthful and when one spoke publically and expressed ideas with conviction.

What a guy!  With intriguing stories like these, who wouldn't want to come to class?

 

 

 

03/21/15 03:11 PM
 

Kevin Cloud Brechner (66)

That is a great story, John.   Mr. King was just a wonderful person and he was impeccably honest and ethical.   He was a great teacher and a great debate coach.  When you are in a debate tournament, your team can be assigned to to argue either in favor of or against the debate topic.  It is a little like being a lawyer in a civil case where you will represent whichever side hires you.  Ethics becomes a factor if you are called to defend something or someone in whom you don't believe.  

A good example was the year when the debate topic was whether or not to legalize abortion.  Strong personal emotions accompany either side of that issue.   In a debate tournament, at some point you invariably get called upon to argue a position that goes counter to your personal stance on the issue.   Mr. King instructed us that in almost any controvery, you can find an ethical position from which to argue for either side.   With topic of abortion, which was illegal when we were in high school, the statistics showed that in America the previous year about one million women chose to have very illegal abortions that were very dangerous to their lives.   Something like 5,000 women died as a result of botched and amateur operations, and many more were permanently mutilated.   So, it is not hard to argue that abortion should be legalized because it will save many lives and prevent many mutilations of women who are going to chose abortion regardless of whether it is legal or illegal.  You don't even have to go to the Pro-choice argument that women have a right to chose what happens to their own bodies.  Legalized abortion does save thousands of women's lives and protects hundreds of thousands of women from opportunist butchers.

Arguing from the other side of the issue, abortion kills a million fetuses every year.   Murders them, plain and simple.   It is not hard to stand up and argue that point.  A million potential humans terminated before they even have a chance to live and love and grow up to contribute to society or make some great invention.

I am still talking about Mr. King here.  In showing us that you usually can find some ethical stance to defend either side of a controversial issue, he taught us that virtually nothing is all black and white.  Mr. King taught history.  He showed us that many great conflicts throughout history come from groups of people taking moral or ethical stances that they believe, in opposition to another group holding a different moral or ethical stance.  The American Civil War was the north fighting to free the country of slavery versus the south fighting to defend States' Rights and their "way of life."  After the voyage of Columbus, European Americans believed they had a manifest destiny to conquer all of the New World for democracy, freedom of their own religions, and various rights such as the right to bear arms, versus the over 500 indigenous Indian tribes who fought to their deaths to protect their homes, homelands, their children, their elders, their own lives, their spirtual beliefs, and their "way of life" from the invading Europeans.

Ultimately what Mr. King taught me was that because each side of most controveries has some ethical position to defend itself, it is only when you understand the good and bad points of each side that you can come to a rational and truly ethical stance for yourself on the issue.  Thank you, Lynes King!   

(And to Mr. Hull and Mr. Wiggington, thanks again for the five paragraph essay.)  


03/23/15 09:31 AM #6    

Frank Carter

I had Mr. King for 20th century history and also recall him in taking a high interest in the welfare and achievements of his students.  Back in the day I, as well undoubtedly a number of us, had a chronic case of underachievement.  I recall one day after he returned a number of graded test papers, he looked at me and stated that I was up and down like a yo-yo.  This is the only remark that was directed at me by any of my teachers that I remember to this day.  I have often reflected on this and it served as an impetus for me to get myself together later on.

Happy 100th birthday Mr King!

 


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