Kevin Cloud Brechner (66)

Mr. King was one of the greatest teachers ever.  I was in his history and speech classes. I had him all the way from Meadowdale Junior High through MHS.   He was truly devoted to teaching and to his students.   He was like a mother hen on all the speech tournaments we used to go to.  I am so happy I had the opportunity to know him and receive his tutelage.  He taught me a lot.  Probably the most important lesson was he taught a shy kid how to stand up in front of a group of strangers and talk coherently.

John Mills

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?

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.)