John E. King ’63

 John, a business lawyer, philosopher, and lifelong athlete, died Feb. 3, 2024, at a retirement home in Seattle, his hometown, after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. He came to the class from Bellevue (Wash.) High School, where he played football and basketball and was class salutatorian.

At Princeton, John majored in history, wrote his thesis on John Adams, was a member of Tower Club, and was active in Orange Key, the Saint Paul Society, and intramural athletics. He roomed senior year with Tom Corry and John Gardner.

John earned a law degree from Harvard in 1966 and then served as an officer in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the Navy. In 1970, he married Josephine Cook Hadlock, with whom he had three children. They lived in Seattle, where John worked with numerous legal and professional service firms. The marriage ended in divorce.

John was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church and served as an usher and member of the vestry at his local parish. A self-described “amateur philosopher,” he published a book of nearly 700 of his own, self-made aphorisms: Captive Notions: Concise on the Commonplace.

John was an enthusiastic follower of politics and a passionate advocate for pro-democracy causes, serving as board president of Fix Democracy First, a nonprofit in Seattle dedicated to campaign finance reform and fair elections.

He loved basketball and played several times a week well into his 70s, frequently full-court. In our 50th-reunion yearbook, he noted that “within the last three or four years, seemingly out of nowhere,” he had acquired “a remarkably accurate outside shot. There’s no explaining some things.”

John is survived by his wife, Gretchen; sons Wyatt and Cabell; daughter Carrington; and eight grandchildren.