Former Haines resident Loyd Lee King died Aug. 7, 2025, in Salem, Ark.
He was born June 5, 1942, to Jack W. King and Bertha Price King in Corpus Christi, Texas. One of six children, King found happiness and fulfillment with constant reinvention through his lifetime, friends and family said.
He served in the U.S. Army from 1958-1961, spending time in California, Arkansas and Haines.
King married Janice Albecker. The two were together for decades and had two children, Kevin and Susan King, both of Haines.
Kevin and Susan remember their father as a highly skilled storyteller, blessed with a lifetime of stories that he shared.
They recall a man who wore many hats while living in Haines, but still took the time to show them how to hunt and fish, though Kevin joked, “My dad did his best fishing with dynamite.”
And — judging by the 1982 poem Loyd shared with the then-combined Haines and Skagway paper, the Lynn Canal News — unorthodox fishing might have been his thing.
“The Saga of Glory Hole”
“Finally they reached the famed Glory Hole,
Where taking of salmon is illegal you know.
But there were the sockeye, just swimming about,
smaller than kings, but much larger than trout!”
“But rumors started flying, that very same week,
about men spearing sockeye, near the mouth of the creek.
then there’s the story, I have heard townfolks say,
about three crazy fisherman, and the sound of gunplay.”
Susan King said her father also taught her how to dance, and he danced often. ”I would put my feet on his feet and I would learn the dance steps.”
A picture of the two of them dancing together hangs on the wall downstairs at the American Legion Lynn Canal Post 12.
“He could really cut a rug,” she said.
King owned a bakery and two donut shops over the course of his life. In Haines, he ran Susie Q’s laundromat on Main Street, named after his daughter. It later morphed into a video arcade.
While his work history could easily be described as colorful, King retired from the Alaska Marine Highway System, where he worked as a purser.
Upper valley resident Mark “Diz” Kistler remembers working with him and said King was dependable and good at what he did.
“He always knew what he was doing,” Kistler said. “He was a team player.”
He had a reputation for having a strong work ethic. Friend Karen Hess recalls that her tour company needed a bus driver one summer. It was King’s last summer in town, and he used to have a commercial driver’s license but had let it lapse.
So he loaded a full-sized bus onto the ferry to Skagway so he could test and update his license and drive for her.
“He drove the Kroschel tour that year,” Hess said. “He was a good tour bus driver and dependable. He went above and beyond.”
King is survived by his wife, Gina King in Arkansas, his former wife Janice Albecker, daughter Susan King, son Kevin King, six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.