Ralph Elijah King, Senior, was a physician from Winnsboro, Louisiana, who served three non-consecutive terms in the Louisiana State Senate from Catahoula, Franklin, and Richland parishes from 1944 to 1952 and again from 1956 to 1960.
Career
Doctor King"s son, Ralph East. King, Junior. (1931-2006), was married to the former Mary Christine Sullivan (1932-1993). The couple had two daughters, Debra Ruth King (1953-1981) and Terri King Reboul (1956-2013).
The Kings are interred at Myrtle Memorial Cemetery in Winnsboro.
In 2008, nearly thirty-four years after his death, Doctor King was posthumously recognized as an honorary pall-bearer at the funeral of his first Senate successor, Billy Boles of Monroe.
Politics
His tenure of office corresponded with the first administration of Governor Jimmie Davis and the second and third terms of Earl Kemp Long, with whom King was politically allied. In 1960, King was unseated by his fellow Democrat, J. C. Gilbert, a farmer from Sicily Island in Catahoula Parish, who years later switched his affiliation to Republican.
