The local and statewide academic world has lost of one of its biggest influences and contributors with the death of former William Carey University University president Tommy King, who passed away on the evening of November 22 at 82 years old.
Officials from the university posted the news of King’s passing on Facebook that evening, announcing that he passed away at Forrest General-Asbury Hospice Center surrounded by members of his immediate family.
“Dr. King’s love for William Carey University was unmatched, and his leadership took us to another level,” current university president Ben Burnett said in the post. “His lifetime of service in the field of education, and with the Baptist churches of Mississippi, changed the lives of Mississippians for generations.”
Funeral arrangements are expected to be announced as more information becomes available. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Tommy King Missionary Dependent Scholarship.
William Carey University offers tuition, textbooks, room, and meal plan free of charge to all International Mission Board dependent children. This scholarship ensures WCU's ability to continue offering this scholarship to the children of the IMB missionaries.
To make a donation, visit www.wmcarey.edu/kingmemorial.
“With heavy hearts, we mourn the passing of our longtime leader and friend,” said Brett Golson, WCU vice president of spiritual development. “Dr. Tommy King blessed us with his leadership as president of William Carey University and enriched our spiritual lives as a pastor and church statesman.
“His profound commitment to education and ministry has left an indelible mark on tens of thousands of students, parents and the community of faith.”
King, who became the ninth president of William Carey University in 2007, was the grandson of Raymond Thomas King, the founder of the Town of Sumrall in Lamar County. King was the first graduate of the university and came to the position with 30 years of experience in public education, ranging from the elementary to university levels.
Before becoming WCU’s president, he served as the university’s dean of the school of psychology and counseling, vice president for graduate and off-campus programs, professor of psychology and executive vice president. He has been honored as an Alumnus of the Year and is a member of the Alumni Hall of Fame.
King also as served the Southern Baptist denomination on the local, state and national levels, including at local churches on staff, significant committees and as a bible teacher and deacon. He is a former member of the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board and served eight years as a member of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
King also has served on the boards of the Laurel Planning Commission, the American Cancer Society in Jones and Marion counties, and the Laurel-Jones County and Mississippi library boards. He was also named Columbia’s “Outstanding Citizen” and was inducted into the Lions Hall of Fame in 2002.
He received numerous awards from the Lions Club, including the Ambassador of Good will award, the highest honor the club bestows upon its members. In 2015 he was named a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International.
In 2010, he was honored with the Hub Award; five years later he was given the Promotion of the Arts Award from the Historic Hattiesburg Downtown Association. King was named a 2015 Outstanding Chief Executive Officer of the year by the Mississippi Business Journal, and was the honoree of the 2017 American Heart Association Gala in the Pine Belt.
King has served in many state and national leadership positions including as president of the Mississippi Association of College and Universities from 2011 to 2012. He also served on the boards of the Salvation Army, the International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities, and the Council of Presidents of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
He also was president of the Southern States Athletic Conference, chairman of the Consortium for Global Education, and vice-chair of the board for National Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute. King was a past member of the boards of the United Way and the Area Development Partnership.
One of King’s first major challenges as president came in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed the university’s first Gulf Coast campus. After that, he chose the location and developed the construction of the new Tradition campus on the Gulf Coast.
“My first task was to find a location to build the Coast campus, and so we surveyed maybe 20 sites along the Coast and finally settled on the Tradition development,” King said in a previous story. “We were the first major (entity) to locate in Tradition.”
During that time, the university applied to open the WCU College of Osteopathic Medicine, which admitted its first class in 2010 at the Hattiesburg campus.
“This fall, it will become the largest medical school in the state of Mississippi,” King said. “There was a great need because of a shortage of healthcare workers; Mississippi has the lowest per capita healthcare workers in the country.
“So it was only natural for us to step in and try to help alleviate that shortage. Looking out where the need exists and finding that healthcare was a major need in our area, and designing plans to meet that need has allowed us to grow and prosper.”
Another challenge came in January 2017, when an EF-3 tornado tore through Hattiesburg and Petal and wreaked havoc on the Hattiesburg campus, destroying six buildings and leaving only one untouched. One of the destroyed buildings was the original Tatum Court, for which King led the rebuilding effort and cut the ribbon on the restored Tatum Court in July 2019.
King was instrumental in establishing the School of Pharmacy at the Tradition campus, a physical therapy doctoral program in Hattiesburg, and a new nursing school in Baton Rouge. He also led the way to the construction of a new 67,000-square-foot facility for the College of Health Sciences – the largest complex WCU has ever built. The most recent ribbon-cutting was for the King Student Center, named in honor of King and his wife, Sandra.
Also During King’s tenure, the university saw unprecedented growth in enrollment, with the number of students more than doubling from 2,500 to more than 5,200. During the same time, the number of residential students in Hattiesburg has increased four-fold and six new dorms have been opened.
“I’m very proud of the growth in enrollment, especially in light of the fact that so many of our sister colleges are actually declining in enrollment,” King said. “We live in a part of the country where the college-age population is declining, and we still are growing, and that’s a big, big accomplishment.
“I’m really proud of the fact that the Gulf Coast campus has hit a record enrollment, and it’s continuing to grow, and that’s where the pharmacy school is.”
On June 21, 2022, WCU officials announced King’s retirement. Burnett, who had previously served as executive vice president of the university, took over King’s duties effective August 16 of that year.
“I’m appreciative and thankful to the board of trustees, and also very grateful to Dr. King for his vision for the university, but also for him to bring me to William Carey eight years ago from my role as superintendent (at the Lamar County School District),” Burnett said after the announcement. “Without Dr. King, none of this would be possible.”
