C. Patrick King
1923– 1996

Inducted June 19, 2003

Over his 40-year newspaper career, former Kalispell Daily Inter Lake publisher C. Patrick King not only produced quality daily newspapers in Montana and Idaho but also schooled a generation of future publishers.

Duane Hagadone, who owned the newspaper group that King helped develop, credited King with training him in sound business principles. King’s protégés remembered him as a personal as well as professional mentor.

“He always had an encouraging word for young newspaper people,” said Bozeman Daily Chronicle Publisher Rick Weaver, who worked under King in Kalispell.

The list of King’s “students” also included Tom Kurdy, publisher of the Daily Inter Lake and the Sioux City Journal.

“Pat taught me many things,” Weaver said. “One of the most important was to have patience in dealing with readers, advertisers and employees.”

King also had a way of influencing his employees, treating them as an extension of his family.

“Pat worked very hard at his job, but managed his newspaper with a gentle hand,” Weaver said.

A native of Bonners Ferry, Idaho, King spent 25 years as a publisher for various Hagadone newspapers, including the Coeur d’Alene Press. He published the Daily Inter Lake from 1976 to 1987 and served as president of the Montana Newspaper Association during in his final year in Montana.

He enjoyed fishing, golf and tennis, but his passion was newspapering.

King’s journalistic career began in earnest after World War II, in which he flew 35 missions over Nazi-occupied Europe as a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps. After the fighting, King returned to Idaho and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Idaho.

King died on July 26, 1996, at Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d’Alene. He was 73. His death came several days short of what would have been King’s 50th wedding anniversary. He and his wife Dorothy had six children.

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