Compare Constellations

Bruce King was born on April 6, 1924, in Stanley, New Mexico, the third child of William (Bill) and Mollie Sue King, Texas homesteaders that arrived in the Estancia Valley with only a 1918 Ford Model T to their name. Trading their Model T to a homesick Texan for a 160 acre homestead on the western edge of the Llano Estacado, the Kings took up the challenge to settle in an area long held to be impossible to sustain human life. The Kings increased the size of their ranch by buying up abandoned homesteads of people moving to the growing urban centers like Albuquerque and Santa Fe. By the time that Bill King died in 1949, his ranch had grown from the original 160 acres with a tar paper dugout to 10,000 acres stretching east of the Sandia and Ortiz Mountains. Currently, the King family is one of the largest land owners in New Mexico, possessing over 400,000 acres across Santa Fe, Torrance, Sandoval, Valencia, Catron and Bernalillo counties.

Growing up in Stanley, Bruce worked the King family ranch, tending to cattle and the corn fields and was a boy scout along with his older brother, Sam, and younger brother, Don, while their sister Leota helped Alice in the house and their father worked with the state highway department. In 1936, New Mexico Governor Clyde Tingley dedicated the new Stanley school, inspiring Bruce to consider a career in politics. Bruce played football for Stanley High School and at the University of New Mexico before he enlisted in the United States Army in 1944, serving with the occupation army until he was discharged in 1946 as a corporal. Within a week he met Alice Martin (born May 13, 1930), the granddaughter of eastern New Mexico pioneers who arrived in the Estancia Valley by covered wagon, at evening church services at the Moriarty Baptist Church. They married the next year, on June 1, 1947.

Bruce established the King Butane Company in the late 1940s with brothers Sam and Don. As a rancher, King became active in ranch and agriculture organizations, including the New Mexico Farm and Livestock bureau, the Soil Conservation Service, and the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association. His involvement in Democratic Party politics increased as well, first as a political backer in county politics, then as US Senator Dennis Chávez’s personal liaison to southern Santa Fe County. In 1951, Bruce and Alice welcomed their first son, Bill, into their Stanley home. Three years later, in 1954, their second son, Gary, was born. That same year, Bruce, then only 29 years old, entered the race for the Santa Fe County Commission, which was dominated by republicans for the past decade. Along with two other democrats, Bruce won the seat and held it until 1958.

When King took office as a Santa Fe County Commissioner, nearly all the positions were cleared of republicans and filled with active democrats who helped the commissioners get elected. He realized that this lead to the disenchantment and vowed to work for he reform of the political spoils system and replace it with the state merit system, based more on qualifications and less on political affiliation. Encouraged by senatorial candidate Fabian Chávez, Bruce ran for the New Mexico House of Representatives in 1959. He was elected to a Democrat dominated House, serving on the agriculture committee and the defending small farm interests of the north against the larger farmers from the lower Rio Grande Valley. In late 1962, he was elected Speaker of the House and in the 1963 session and 1964 special session (a sixty day regular session was held every two years on odd numbered years until 1966, when a thirty day session was added for even numbered years), King focused on educational finance reform, including a public school equalization bill that distributed school funding more equally, as well as creating the Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute, the University of New Mexico medical school and new agricultural buildings at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

In 1966, Bruce ran for the democratic gubernatorial nomination against former Governor John Burroughs and Gene Lusk. After a weak showing in the nomination process, King decided to stay in the House, where he retained his position as speaker. He also became Democratic chairman on the advice from Senator Clinton P. Anderson, as well as the co-chair of the Gene Lusk campaign for governor. Lusk would lose the election to Republican candidate David Cargo. Over the next two years, King worked to settle a teacher salary strike in Albuquerque, to reform the state’s liquor laws, and supported legislation to hold a state constitutional revision commission. The commission recommended that a state constitutional convention be held, with delegates elected from across the state. In 1969, King won a seat as a delegate and won the seat of president of the convention. Despite their work, the new constitution was rejected by voters in the December election.

Bruce King ran for governor again in 1968, losing to Fabian Chávez in the primary election. Chávez would go onto to lose to the incumbent David Cargo in the general election. King ran again in 1970 with San Miguel County Democrat Roberto Mondragón seeking the Lieutenant Governor seat. They beat a republican team of future US Senator Pete Domenici and future US Congressman Joe Skeen by over 15,000 votes. King was sworn in as New Mexico’s 21st governor on January 1, 1971. The newly elected governor inherited a hand full of departments, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Highway Department, and the Department of Finance and Administration, which were disorganized and needed professionalization. The land grant controversy that erupted under Cargo was far from resolved, and the university system that was in turmoil as students protested the war and discrimination, rioting in Albuquerque on June 13th and 14th, 1971 and protesting the hiring of an Anglo president at New Mexico Highlands University. With new department heads, including King’s nephew, David King at the State Planning Office, and new boards of regents at UNM and New Mexico Highlands University, the King administration made steady progress.

Working with the legislature, the King administration created an environmental board and rewrote the state mining laws to restrict pollution. In 1972, the administration and legislature worked together once again to create a “low income tax rebate," refunding monies to the poorest tax payers who paid a disproportionate share of the gross receipts tax that was attached to nearly all goods and services. With the help of New Mexico Senate leader Tibo Chávez, the King administration created the New Mexico Washington Office to serve as a liaison for New Mexico State Government in Washington. Because of a state law that prohibited a governor from succeeding himself, Bruce King did not for the state executive in 1974, but immediately considered running again in 1978. Democrat Jerry Apodaca beat out Republican Joe Skeen for the state’s top job and King returned to Stanley to oversee his ranch and butane business.

The executive department underwent reorganization under Governor Apodaca, elevating many department heads from directors to secretaries. Considered one of newly elected President Jimmy Carter’s top picks for Secretary of Agriculture in 1976, Bruce King remained in civic life and considered this the only job that would pull him out of New Mexico. When King was not selected, he once again set his sights on 1978 and the governorship. After beating Lieutenant Governor Bob Ferguson in the primary, King was once again paired with his former Lieutenant Governor Roberto Mondragón against Republicans Joe Skeen and Leo Dow. King and Mondragón beat Skeen and Dow by only 4,000 votes and assumed the Governor’s seat for the second time.

The state had changed drastically since Bruce King left Santa Fe in 1974. After the reorganization of the executive branch, King had more positions to fill in boards, committees, commissions and councils. The state budget surplus that King created in his first term continued through Governor Apodaca’s term and each region of the state fought to allocate the money in their favor. In 1978, the biggest issues were liquor law reform and right-to-work legislation, a seemingly perennial issue on the national and state levels in the 1970s. The 1979 legislature passed right-to-work legislation in both houses, which withstood Governor King’s veto because of a technicality. The Governor brought in his former press secretary, Jim Baca, in as the state liquor director and appointed his nephew David to serve as head of the Department of Finance and Administration.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the first and second term did not come from the Governor himself at all. In fact, King ran a strong campaign touting the consistency that he would bring to the office. During the first administration, Gary King was finishing high school and Alice focused on her family and the traditional social duties of the first lady. In the second King administration, Alice worked diligently on issues effecting the youth and the elderly. She chaired the New Mexico Committee for the International Year of the Child in 1979, the White House-New Mexico Conference on Families in 1980, the New Mexico Council for the International Year of the Disabled Person in 1981, the Governor’s Committee on Adolescent Pregnancy and the New Mexico Youth in the 80’s Conference. The First Lady also served as the director of the Office of Voluntary Citizen Participation, the Governor’s Youth Resource Center and was a member of the New Mexico Youth Work Alliance. As a member of the Board of Director’s of the New Mexico Boys Ranch, Mrs. King spearheaded the effort to establish the New Mexico Girls Ranch.

The First Lady also served on the New Mexico Children’s Code Task Force, where she made her march on issues of juvenile justice as a leader of the Juvenile Code Task Force and chaired the Juvenile Justice Council through her work with the Youth Authority. She also served on the Governor’s Task Force on Family Policy, a working group of representatives from the Human Services Department, the Department of Health, the Youth Authority, the judiciary, and the general public that discussed ways to better coordinate, connect, and deliver state services to families. This group was a precursor to the Governor’s Task Force on Children and Families, which resulted in the creation of the Children, Youth and Families Department in 1992 during Governor King’s third term. The centralization of services into one department would have to wait as corrections would largely come to define Governor King’s second term.

On February 2 and 3, 1980, prisoners in the State Penitentiary in Santa Fe rioted for two days, taking over sections of the prison in protest of what they claimed were deteriorating conditions. The situation had in fact deteriorated at the State Pen since 1974. The state Corrections Commission had lost much of its power in the reorganization of the executive and now served only as an advisor to the criminal justice department. After a December 10, 1979 ten prisoner maximum security breakout, corrections secretary Charles Becknell stepped down, leaving the corrections department in transition. The riot drew national press and dozens of reporters surrounded the prison, along with the concerned families of prison inmates and guards. Prisoners took advantage of a construction project at the prison and used tools to free maximum security prisoner and punish supposed snitches. At the end of the brutal two day riot, thirty-three prisoners lay dead.

In the months after the riot, reporters criticized the governor and the legislature for letting the prison system deteriorate. Governor King worked with Attorney General (and future US Senator) Jeff Bingaman to investigate the riot and create a citizen’s council to develop a new correctional policy. With the departure of Becknell’s replacement, Adolph Saenz, the administration hired Roger Crist from the Montana corrections system and developed a new corrections master plan. Corrections reform became one of the King administration’s greatest accomplishments in the face of the prison riot. The Governor also signed into law the State Crime Stoppers Commission along with liquor law reform and organized crime prevention measures. Bruce King was also one of the founding governor’s of the International Border Governor’s Conference, increased highway construction across the state, and protected New Mexico’s rights as a state in negotiations for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southern New Mexico. Bruce King left the Governor’s office again in 1982, matching Edwin L. Mechem for the most years of service as Governor of New Mexico.

Bruce and Alice King returned to Stanley for a second time, leaving behind Santa Fe politics for the King Brothers Ranch and King Butane Company. Alice continued her involvement with charitable boards, serving on the boards of Carrie Tingley Hospital, the United Way of Greater Albuquerque, and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History Foundation. Bruce King decided not to run in 1986, following the administration of fellow east mountain politician Toney Anaya. Rather, he supported Ray Powell, the unchallenged Democratic candidate, fundraising and campaigning for his longtime friend. Powell lost to Republican Garrey Carruthers, and Bruce began his plans to run for governor in 1990.

The former Governor faced a tough primary against former New Mexico Attorney General Paul Bardacke. After beating Bardacke, who ran on a ticket emphasizing the environment and the economy, King campaigned in a general election that placed him opposite Republican candidate Frank Bond. Bond’s family had been in New Mexico for four generations, running a sheep, land cattle empire in northern New Mexico and acquiring land throughout the state. The King Brothers Ranch had bought the Alamo Ranch west of Albuquerque from the Bond’s and the families had a strong congenial relationship, being two of the largest land owners in New Mexico. Still, Bond attacked King for the prison riot and for his age, while King pointed out Bond’s relative lack of experience. The former Chairman of the Commission of Higher Education and campaign chair for Senator Pete Domenici’s 1984 re-election campaign, Bond posed tough opposition. New Mexico voted in favor of experience, electing a democratic team of Bruce King and Belen auto dealer Casey Luna over Frank Bond and Mary L. Thompson by over 30,000 votes.

During the campaign, King assured voters that they were getting two for the price of one when they voted King: Bruce and Alice. Taking up where they left off in 1982, the King’s political partnership proved beneficial for the state as Alice immediately set about improving social services to New Mexico families. As a member of the board of directors of the Family Resource Coalition and through her work creating the New Mexico Children’s Agenda, Alice had made contacts with child advocacy groups across the state. With the help of sons Bill, who had served as the Governor’s legislative liaison, and Gary, who served as a state representative from Moriarty, the King’s worked to foster support for a separate children, youth, and families department that would centralize government social services into one department. King created the Governor’s Task Force on Children and Families and appointed Alice King Chair.

The Task Force met across the state holding town meetings from May 1991 to June 1992 and created a report recommending the creation of a cabinet level Children, Youth, and Families Department. Later that year, Governor King signed into law legislation creating the Children, Youth and Families Department, the first cabinet level department of its kind in the nation, and appointed Deputy Director of Human Services C. Wayne Powell as its first Cabinet Secretary. The Governor and the First Lady did not rest with the creation of CYFD, quickly setting their sights on improving maternal and prenatal care and immunization across the state. Alice headed the Governor’s Drug Free Red Ribbon Campaign and led educational initiatives, including the Governor’s Summit on Education and National Science Foundation $10 million grant for Systematic Change for Mathematics and Science Education.

The Governor, meanwhile, set about making changes to in the cabinet while still retaining many department heads from the Carruthers administration. With the help of legislation in the 1991 legislature, the King administration elevated the Environment Division of the Department of Health to a department level agency. King also created a new Tourism Department outside of the Economic Development Department. Along with Alice’s work on education and children and family issues, economic development and environmental protection came to define Bruce King’s third term as governor.

Changes in state laws allowed Bruce King to run for a consecutive term as governor. His opposition to the Monitored Retrievable Storage of nuclear waste proposed by the Mescalero Apaches and to Indian gaming in New Mexico became an issue that his opponents were quick to take up. Lieutenant Governor Casey Luna became increasingly critical of King and announced his candidacy for the executive in the spring of 1994, as did Jim Baca, King’s former press secretary and state liquor director. Former Lieutenant Governor Roberto Mondragón announced his candidacy as a member of the Green Party. Political newcomer Gary Johnson won a close Republican primary race against long timers Dick Cheney, John Dendahl and former Governor David Cargo. After a divisive primary campaign against Luna, Governor King emerged as the Democratic candidate, with future New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid on the ticket running for Lieutenant Governor. The King and Madrid ticket found themselves caught between the libertarian conservative Johnson and the liberal Mondragón. Gary Johnson and Walter Bradley won the election as Mondragón took ten percent of the vote, presumably a sizeable potion that might have voted for King if Mondragón was not on the ballot.

The King’s left the Governor’s Mansion and the Roundhouse for the last time in December of 1994. By their retirement, the King’s had created quite an impressive record of service to the state. 1994 marked Governor King’s fortieth year in public service, while Alice King had chaired or served as a member of more than thirty major boards and commissions. While Alice had re-written the First Lady’s position, Bruce King long had the reputation as the country boy of New Mexico politics, being the last native New Mexican to serve as Governor and one of few rural politicians to attain the state’s top job. The King’s retired to their Stanley, New Mexico ranch, where they oversee the King Brothers ranch with Bruce’s brothers Sam and Don and son Bill, as well as King’s Butane Company.