Family and friends are invited to attend a 90th birthday party for James King this Sunday, March 26, from 2-4 p.m., at the A.W. Todd Centre in Russellville.
King, a retired operating engineer with Tennessee Valley Authority, is perhaps better known for teaching firearm safety for the State of Alabama and his volunteer service coaching young people in competitive trap shooting. He coached a local team that won the 2004 world championship in the Scholastic Clay Target competition.
Although King is a 1945 graduate of Belgreen High School, he missed his graduation, with good reason.
“I was at Parris Island (South Carolina) with the United States Marine Corps,” King recalled.
King grew up as a hunter and marksman and he served as a rifle instructor in the Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Later, he was in charge of the rifle range for 29 months at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of his five years of active duty in the Marines.
King's seen a world of change in his 90 years. How much our society has changed is evidenced by a story King tells about his school days at Belgreen.
King's ag teacher Carl Woods had the students raise hogs and it came time to butcher the hogs, so King volunteered his services.
“Someone had to kill them so I volunteered to do that. I carried in my rifle with my books and left it in the corner of the ag classroom and went on to class,” King said.
“Sometimes I would hunt before the bus ran for school. I'd use my shotgun to squirrel hunt. If I killed a squirrel, I put it in the mailbox and laid the gun on on the mailbox frame. I put the squirrel in the box so the green flies couldn't get to it. We were glad to get the meat. You talk about a depression. There sure was one,” King said.
King and his wife Maxine have five children. When you total their children, spouses, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it comes to an amazing total of 71 people. All five of King's children are Belgreen graduates.
In addition to seeing his family on Sunday, King is excited about the prospect of seeing some of the young people whose lives he's touched.
“I hope to. I've met people all over the country and helped them with shooting. It was always a volunteer thing with me. I just loved it and love working with young people,” King said.
Debbie Hatton, King's daughter, said anyone whose life has been touched by her father is invited to come Sunday afternoon.
“We welcome everyone. It's basically a meet and greet and a time to see some old faces. My father has done so much for so many people and this is a time to honor him as he turns 90,” Hatton said.
King said he's been blessed to work with young people who set good examples in contrast to what we see in the news on a daily basis.
“It bothers me that young people don't seem to pay as much attention to what's going on around them today,” King said. “You can get down and out watching TV and seeing how young people act crazy in our world.
“At the Cedar Hill Trap Range, kids the same ages acted carefully, respectfully in contrast to what you see on the news. These kids were sharp as a briar and that builds you back up and gets me thinking maybe there's hope for our world,” he added.
King also believes today's world could use a healthy dose of respect when it comes to how we treat each other.
“The main difference from my days growing up is most of the time people treat other now with no respect. When I was a kid, you said 'yes sir, yes ma'am' to everyone older than you and thought nothing about it,” King said.
“We thought that's how we were supposed to talk. Everybody today is in a hurry. People are rushed and don't have time to enjoy life. They can't see the forest for the trees and can't hear the music for the dogs barking,” he added.
