{"id":46220,"date":"2017-06-23T08:44:26","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T12:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=46220"},"modified":"2022-09-28T09:31:49","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T13:31:49","slug":"grand-slam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2017\/06\/23\/grand-slam\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand slam"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Steve King ’85 in the music practice room in the Creative Arts Center named after his mother, Marilee King, who graduated from Wright State in 1969 with a degree in education. (Photos by Erin Pence)<\/p><\/div>\n

For eight years of their lives \u2014 between the ages of 7 and 15 \u2014 Steve and Mike King practiced the piano virtually every day on a baby grand in the living room of their Trotwood home.<\/p>\n

Their mother \u2014 Marilee King \u2014 insisted on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no way out of it and there was no quitting,\u201d recalled Steve King, now 59. \u201cShe was the law, and you were going to do as was expected of you. Her standard phrase in response was, \u2018You\u2019ll thank me some day.\u2019 And by God was she right.\u201d<\/p>\n

In honor of Marilee King, who graduated from Wright State University in 1969 with a degree in education, College of Liberal Arts<\/a> Dean Linda Caron made a donation to have a music practice room<\/a> in the university\u2019s Creative Arts Center named after her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI admired her greatly,\u201d said Caron, a close friend of Marilee\u2019s and Steve King\u2019s partner for the past 23 years. \u201cShe was a strong, smart and independent woman with a great sense of humor and an enormous love of family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve King, who graduated from Wright State in 1985 with a degree in political science, would use the music practice rooms a few times a week when he was a student because he didn\u2019t have a keyboard where he lived. He hopes Caron\u2019s donation inspires others to give back to the university.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a permanent way of honoring our mother other than her gravesite,\u201d he said as he sat in the practice room next to a baby grand piano. \u201cWe believe she deserves to be immortalized. It would be nice if all of the practice rooms could be named for someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Cincinnati, Marilee King moved frequently from apartment to apartment because her mother worked as a private-duty nurse for well-to-do families such as the Tafts and the Crosleys and would have to constantly relocate. But Marilee eventually moved to Dayton when her mother took a job at Good Samaritan Hospital.<\/p>\n

After graduating from Fairview High School, Marilee worked as a secretary for Grace United Methodist Church and a car dealership, which became a call center for the military during World War II.<\/p>\n

King\u2019s father, Peter Sr., served in the U.S. Army during World War II, fighting in the hedgerows of France following the D-Day invasion. After the war ended, he returned to Ohio, met Marilee and the couple got married and began raising a family. They moved to Trotwood in 1957 and divorced when Steve was a teenager.<\/p>\n

In 1964, Marilee enrolled at what would become Wright State to study education<\/a>, the first in her family to go to college. She earned her degree in 1969 and began teaching in the Trotwood School District at Olive Hill Elementary School, where she would work for 23 years before retiring at 65.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo of Marilee King and her sons, Mike, Steve and Pete Jr.<\/p><\/div>\n

Music was important to King\u2019s mother because she had always wanted to learn to play the piano, but never got the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe loved nothing more than listening to us play the piano,\u201d King said. \u201cShe took such great pride and really got to live a childhood dream through what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The King boys included Steve, who is the youngest; Mike, the middle child, who died two years ago after a battle with cancer; and Pete Jr., who escaped piano practice because the piano arrived too late for him to start lessons in early childhood. However, Pete did have to practice the trumpet daily for six years of his life and which he played until age 60, when he blew out his lip permanently during a military funeral.<\/p>\n

While Steve King now appreciates his mother\u2019s strong stance on piano practice, it wasn\u2019t so easy at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lived in hope,\u201d King said. \u201cWe thought some day she\u2019ll soften up. Some day the edge will come off and she\u2019ll say, \u2018Oh, take a day off.\u2019 But it never happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marilee was equally adamant about her boys practicing when it came to sports and theater. And they were always expected to make the Honor Roll at school.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother one of my mother\u2019s edicts was that you don\u2019t earn anything without hard work,\u201d King said. \u201cKnowledge was sacred, just the pursuit of knowledge. And bettering yourself was not an option. You had been given X amount of talents and a good brain at birth, and you were going to develop them to the best of your potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

At age 70, Marilee began to lose her eyesight and decided she could no longer safely drive, telling her son that he was going to be her driver. So began the years of what King calls \u201cdriving Miss Daisy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time, she gets into the back seat of my car,\u201d recalled King. \u201cShe said I want to be chauffeured today. She said I spent half my life driving your butts around, so it\u2019s about time one of you did it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

King said it epitomized his mother\u2019s ability to switch gears, accept her fate and give up any illusions she may have had before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was constant with her throughout her life,\u201d he said. \u201cShe could adapt more quickly than anybody I\u2019ve ever seen and with less emotion. She just ruled herself with an iron fist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five years ago, she died in her sleep at home, where she lived alone. She was 85.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe still took care of herself until the day she died. She cleaned her own house, did her own bills, her own correspondence,\u201d said King, who would come over nearly every day to visit, run errands, cut the grass and help with other chores.<\/p>\n

King still plays the piano. He has performed solo and with rock bands, at parties and just for fun. Today, he does keyboards and vocals in a solo act, often playing at Dayton Riverscape\u2019s \u201cMusic at Lunch\u201d series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to quit once,\u201d King said. \u201cI lasted three years. And then I ran screaming back to the keyboards because I couldn\u2019t take letting that skill go. It was literally a sin and a betrayal of what our mother gave us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Practice room in the Creative Arts Center honors Marilee King, who graduated from Wright State University in 1969 and who instilled a strong work ethic in her three sons. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":46225,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4307,722,733,4309,2037,2104,711,4859,2040,744,725,747,715,4855],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-50th","category-academics","category-alumni","category-alumni-association","category-arts-scene","category-teacher-education","category-faculty-staff","category-fine-and-performing-arts","category-giving","category-education-human-services","category-home-news-sidebar","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-social-sciences-and-international-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46220"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46505,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46220\/revisions\/46505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}