Jim King, Santa Rosa gardening guru and teacher, dies

Longtime high school horticulture teacher, avid gardener and rose aficionado James C. “Jim” King died Sept. 20 at age 94, but reminders of his life’s work persist around Sonoma County.

A rose garden he helped plant still grows in Juilliard Park. A sign naming a greenhouse after him hangs in Santa Rosa High School’s museum. And generations of Santa Rosa students are still active in gardening or farming because of an interest he fostered in them years ago.

“He’s absolutely one of the greatest teachers the program ever had,” said Lisa Piehl, an agriculture teacher who heads the program at Santa Rosa High School.

“His legacy, the things he put into place, allowed our program to remain viable within the community. He’s very much a founding father.”

King grew up in North Carolina, where his father had a dairy farm.

He attended North Carolina State University before joining the Army in 1942. He served with the 107th Cavalry in France and Germany before being assigned to Santa Rosa, his daughter Susan King said.

He and his wife, Eileen, liked the area and decided to settle there.

In 1946, he took a job at Santa Rosa High School, where he remained until 1979, teaching horticulture and animal science and for many years leading the Future Farmers of America club.

“Santa Rosa High School in those days was probably the winningest school (around),” said Steve Olson, retired dean of instruction at SRJC and a student of King’s. “Santa Rosa everywhere was recognized for the quality of its program, due to the quality of instructors who worked very hard and were very generous with their time.”

King traveled with students to state and national competitions in poultry judging.

“He was very much an advocate for young students in helping them get a good start,” Susan King said of her father, adding that he stayed busy ?12 months a year with the job, advising students and taking them to competitions.

Olson said he followed in King’s footsteps, becoming a high school agriculture teacher before helping start an agriculture program at the junior college in 1970.

After retiring from high school teaching in 1979, King joined Olson at Santa Rosa Junior College, working part-time to help connect students with job training opportunities for more than two decades.

In retirement, King was active in his Methodist church, the Redwood Empire Rose Society and the Santa Rosa Men’s Garden Club, which he helped found in 1947. Starting each January, he would spend months preparing thousands of begonias, marigolds and other flowers for the club’

In addition to the flower display, his work with the junior livestock auction and as an FFA adviser made him a fixture at the Sonoma County Fair for more than half a century.

“I enjoy it. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be doing it,’’ he told The Press Democrat in 1999. That year, the fair honored his work by dedicating its Exhibitor Guidebook to him.

The tall, fit man remained active into his 90s, attending garden club meetings, tending his own rose garden and running regularly.

Many of his fellow garden club members, like Sam McMillan, were also former students. McMillan recalled that King was always involved, whether helping out at a livestock auction, teaching a pruning class or taking students on a livestock judging trip.

“He could teach you a whole lot of things in an easy and gentle way,” he said. “He was very much a beloved individual.”

Tom Arens, another former student and member of the FFA poultry judging team who traveled with King to a national competition, never lost touch with him after graduating in 1958. He lived outside the country for many years, but when he returned in 2000, King recruited him for the garden club.

“He was a real authority on roses,” Arens said. “He could name every one in his garden, and he had 50 varieties at least.”

At one point, King was national president of the Gardeners of America/Men’s Garden Club of America.

His work earned him numerous awards and recognitions over the years, including the California Farm Bureau’s 30-year service award for agriculture.

King never lost touch with the agriculture program at Santa Rosa High School or his former students. Until the last seven years or so, he would visit the school to teach pruning methods or attend a sheep auction or awards banquet, Piehl said.

He’d also make a point to buy a student’s lamb at auction to support the program, Arens said. When he didn’t have enough money to buy a whole lamb, he’d find someone with whom to split the cost.

“That was important to Jim,” he said. “He was really dedicated that way.”

King is survived by his daughter, Susan, and sisters Helen Larson of Iowa and Jean Peele of Tennessee.

Plans for a celebration of his life are still being developed.