Dave King Passes Away
***UPDATED AT 6 P.M. WITH QUOTE FROM ROB SNYDER***
Longtime Lubbock media figure Dave King passed away on Monday, June 5, 2023 after a brief battle with cancer. In a Facebook post, King's son, Landon posted that Dave King passed away "comfortably" at 12:37 p.m. at his home in Lubbock.
King began his career in Lubbock media in 1968 at KAMC-TV before moving from an on-air role to sales. Then, from 1977 to 1982 King was the sales manager for KLBK-TV. In 1983, King left KLBK-TV, to become his own boss, by forming his own advertising agency. The story of how Dave King Advertising was formed, was something Dave enjoyed telling the story about on the radio time and time again. In addition, Dave's deep, distinctive voice became a fixture on his clients' commercials for both television and radio for decades..
Years later, King would jump back into the on-air side of broadcasting, by joining RAMAR's KJTV-AM in the late 2000s to co-host different morning shows with Jim Douglass and present-day Lubbock County Judge Curtis Parrish. King's tenure with KJTV-AM lasted through 2013. Then in February 2017, Dave King joined KFYO as host of "KFYO Mornings with Dave King and Matt Martin". In August of 2021, King was partnered with Tom Collins for the newest version of the KFYO morning show, re-branded as "Sunrise LBK". Dave stayed on the air on KFYO through late May 2023.
To family and friends, Dave was known as "Super Dave". Off-air, Dave King was the chairman of Lubbock's first Honor Flight in 2012 and was a member and past-President of Monterey AMBUCS. King was also a long-time member of the Lubbock Lions Club. King also served as the stadium voice for the Texas Tech Goin' Band from Raiderland from 2006-2016, succeeding the late Paul Archinal.
Former KFYO Director of News & Programming Rob Snyder recounts Dave's good-natured badgering of him at Texas Tech Football games. "For years, Dave would come up to me in the pressbox at Jones AT&T Stadium and say, 'When are you putting me on KFYO?'", Snyder recalls. "It took a number of years, but the planets aligned in early 2017, and I know Dave thoroughly enjoyed his time hosting shows on KFYO."
Most importantly, Dave King was a husband and father. He and his wife Gail married in 1971. They have two children and two grandchildren. In his post on Facebook, Landon King posted that a celebration of life for Dave King will be announced in the coming days.
All of us at News/Talk 95.1 & 790, KFYO extend our deepest sympathies and prayers to the King family.