Dairy industry advocate King dies
President visits Texas; wife Jill helps food pantry
Integrity, decency, a man of his word.
Those are just a few of the thoughts that come to mind when friends remember Edgar King, a native Saratoga County son and lifelong champion for the dairy industry who died on Sunday.
The former deputy commissioner of state Agriculture and Markets under governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo who was later elected supervisor for Northumberland, was 81. No cause of death was given.
“Ed was a man of absolute integrity and dignity,” said Waterford Supervisor John Lawler. “His word was his bond. If you shook on something, that was better than a written contract.”
Lawler said he learned a lot from King, especially about dairy farming and “not letting partisan politics influence decisions.
“He always acted in the best interest of the county,” Lawler said.
King earned his political chops in Albany, serving 12 years at Ag and Markets, from 1976 to
1987, before running for office.
On Thursday, Agriculture Commissioner Richard A. Ball recalled King as a “tireless public servant, dedicated farmer and family man, and a true friend.”
“We follow in his footsteps every day as we continue his work to move New York agriculture forward,” Ball said in a statement.
At the county level, he was a vocal Democratic voice in an otherwise Republican-controlled body before his retirement in 2004. (His father had been elected to the office in 1944.)
It was that outspokenness that first ushered the lifelong dairy farmer into office. He rallied the residents in Northumberland to oppose the county’s plans for a landfill in the rural community. That led to his election and a long fight that enraged many Republicans around the county and especially at the Gop-controlled Board of Supervisors.
Edinburg Supervisor Jean Raymond remembers how hard King fought to keep out the landfill, a fight he eventually lost.
“He never let the fight get nasty,” Raymond said. “He was always a gentleman, always polite, always friendly.”
King also put in stints on the boards of Dairy Management, Inc., which oversaw the popular Got Milk? advertising campaign; the National Dairy Board, the board of the Dairylea cooperative, and the New England Dairy Promotion Board.
Following his retirement from public service, King remained active with King Brothers Dairy in Schuylerville, the fifthgeneration family-run operation originally established by his grandfather in 1901. Today, his family farm is well-known locally for bottling and delivering fresh milk and scooping some of the best ice cream in the county, as rated by Saratoga.com,
“I’m so happy that Ed lived to see his sons convert the farm into a successful business,” Raymond said.
He and his wife of 59 years, Carolyn, ran a bed and breakfast too, a venture which brought both of them “great joy working together and meeting new folks who visited the Saratoga area,” according to his obituary.
King embraced his role as an “ever-cheerful” greeter and tour guide for friends and guests at the location. He also served as an elder and deacon at Bacon Hill Reformed Church, the site of his funeral on Friday.
In addition to Carolyn, King is survived by his four sons and their families, as well grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
Lawler said that King will be missed.
“I respected and admired Ed,” Lawler said. “It was an honor and a pleasure to work with him.”
President Joe Biden heard firsthand from Texans clobbered by this month’s brutal winter weather on Friday as he and his wife made their first trip to a major disaster area since he took office.
Biden was briefed by emergency officials and thanked workers for doing “God’s work.”
With tens of thousands of Houston area residents still without safe water, local officials told Biden that many are struggling. While he was briefed, Jill Biden joined an assembly line of volunteers packing boxes of quick oats, juice, and other food at the Houston Food Bank, where he arrived later.
The president’s first stop was the Harris County Emergency Operations Center for a briefing from acting FEMA Administrator
Bob Fenton and state and local emergency management officials.
Texas was hit particularly hard by the Valentine’s weekend storm that battered multiple states. Unusually frigid conditions led to widespread power outages and frozen pipes that burst and flooded homes.
Millions of residents lost heat and running water.
At least 40 people in
Texas died as a result of the storm and, although the weather has returned to more normal temperatures, more than 1 million residents are still under orders to boil water before drinking it.
“The president has made very clear to us that in crises like this, it is our duty to organize prompt and competent federal support to American citizens, and we have to ensure that bureaucracy and
politics do not stand in the way,” said Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-randall, who accompanied Biden to Houston.
Biden was joined at the operations center by Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. John Cornyn, both Republicans, four Democratic Houston-area members of Congress and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.