The Woman Who Saved a City
When formal goodbyes and happy retirement posts hit Facebook upon Elizabeth King’s departure this month, I noticed only one that gave a proper description to what this means. “End of an era.” For us, it is. For Elizabeth, it’s merely a continuation of her lifelong commitment of making a difference.
There are dreamers and there are dream makers. Without a doubt, Elizabeth King is one of the makers. Her inborn ability to turn ideas into something tangible served more than just Wichita State University. To me, she will always be a Wichita legend.
People in general have difficulty looking back, especially in decades. As a longtime real estate agent, I can attest to the ‘state of the city’ in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Wichita was dying. Our city offered nothing more than tax abatements, attempting to hold on to corporations with a desire to grow.
One after the other, exits from our market were reported by the Wichita Eagle. Companies paid big bucks reimbursing key employees for property value losses under the guise of ‘relocation incentives.’ Pizza Hut, even Boeing, signed the orders. Our future was slipping away.
Wichita State University was also at a crossroads. It had become stagnant. Losing our football program, a decade after the tragic plane crash of ’70, seemed to cast a pall on the entire existence of WSU athletics. Even our long historied basketball team was showing signs of fading into the sunset. It was difficult to choose the word ‘enthusiasm’ and include it in a sentence with the university. Wichita had lost the pride of being a Shocker.
In the early 1990s, Wichita State made a hire. Imaginably, they surely hadn’t envisioned the profound effect this union would have. Enter Elizabeth King. A beautiful Texan, she was well educated and a class extraordinaire. Ironically, an entry probably considered ‘insignificant’ as part of her bio, was likely the very skill that changed the course of the future of Wichita. Elizabeth was raised as a missionary.
Unlike what some believe, missionaries do not step into foreign cultures and beat people over the head with a bible. They are on a mission to ‘love thy neighbor.’ In the process of getting their own hands dirty, digging wells and tilling soil properly to grow food, the creation of sustainable communities materialize. It is through genuine love for another, without regard to self, that Christianity becomes attractive.
Elizabeth King brought compassion into a position of crusading for a renewed Wichita State University Foundation. She demonstrated the ability to convey vision. For that matter, it wouldn’t surprise me if she was infinitely responsible for enhancing the scope of the visionaries she worked for.
I so wish my husband Frank was here to offer these accolades. For it was through him, I was shown the window to greatness. He considered Elizabeth to be one of those. If his sentence began with, “Elizabeth would like me to meet with…..” there was significance. Seeds were being planted. He respected people who brought others together with the objective of aligning a bigger purpose.
Some say she is gifted. I say her gift is maternal. She gathered donors, along with advocates from every corner of the university, collectively at a table of unity. Under her tutelage she taught them to speak the same language. Like a family, she bonded people together and gave them interest in one another.
She believed in and strongly supported Shocker Athletics. Koch Arena became her dining room and Devlin Court was her table. The joy served in the room, resulted in the enthusiasm WSU had lost. Suddenly, we were united in the belief our veins bled black and gold. The energy made us committed.
Elizabeth never tried to sell anything to anybody. Nor was it in her demeanor to pester or obligate. The glisten in her eyes and her welcoming smile enlightened us to the future. The tender care of her generational inclusion made us all claim our place as part of a larger family. She taught Wichita how to care.
The city of Wichita’s landscape forever changed. From a city our size, the nearly a billion dollars raised during her tenure is considered notches above astronomical. Only limited to the boundaries of dreams, infrastructure spread across the city, securing the future of WSU and, more importantly, the city of Wichita. Buildings and the fruit of investment began to rise from the ground.
Colleges of healthcare, engineering, Barton School of Business, Innovation Campus, and the integration of WSU Tech, among many others, literally put WSU and Wichita on the radar for those seeking healthy economic development. The expansion of facilities to train a skilled employment base and infrastructures to enhance the creators is a calling card we never had before.
She understood the importance of the private sector. It takes people to believe first. Federal grants and government monies are worthless unless a community has skin in the game.
Yes, what a beautiful ‘era’ it was, and Elizabeth was at the heart of it. Promises made, promises kept and generations of those who have gone before had equal voice. Judeo-Christian values brought more people together than any government inclusion project could ever instigate. It was a time when finding our likeness overshadowed anything that made us different.
In typical fashion, Elizabeth would redirect honor to being blessed by the opportunity to carry out the wishes of Hughes, Beggs and Bardo. She would try to shift the gratitude back to her donors. But don’t be fooled. We as a community became the beneficiaries, because during her tenure, she created a family. It is what missionaries do. She listened to us. She filled us with courage and made us valuable again.
Well, the truth about missionaries is that they come, they bless and they leave. They have families and other missions that need tending. Let none of us forget the contributions of Elizabeth King. We will miss her dearly.
Elizabeth, I know you have more to do. But for now, I will speak on the behalf of the multitudes that feel the same. Well done, good and faithful servant.
Janie Carney
March 7, 2024
Photo credit: Fernando Salazar for Shocker Magazine
