Services for former Sen. Keith King, who died Saturday at age 75, will be held next month in Colorado Springs.

A visitation will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 21, from 9 to 10 a.m. at the Radiant Church, 4020 Maizeland Rd., Colorado Springs. His funeral will begin at 10 a.m. in the same location.

Gov. Jared Polis has ordered flags lowered to half-staff until the day of King’s funeral service.

King, a champion for school choice, served eight years in the House, including as Majority Leader in 2003-04; and four years in the Senate, from 2009 to 2013. He followed that with a term on the Colorado Springs City Council, including as president.

During a 2012 tribute to King upon his retirement from the General Assembly, then-senator and now Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said King “has done as much for education policy in 12 of the last 14 years as anyone in the state, both on the ground, running a school, and working on education policy.”

Johnston told Colorado Politics on Tuesday through a spokesperson that “working with Sen. Keith King was a delight every day.”

“He was a wonderful human being and an incredible legislator. I loved every chance I got to work with him, and I know that Colorado will miss the kindness and creativity he brought to policymaking,” the mayor said. 

King was term-limited in 2006 and sat out the 2007-2008 sessions before deciding to run for the Senate.

King picked up several nicknames during his time in the General Assembly.

During the 2012 tribute, Sen. Kent Lambert, a Colorado Springs Republican, called King “the Johnny Appleseed of charter schools, planting them wherever he went.”

King served as governor for a full week during an absence by then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, “fifth on the bench,” Lambert said, to chuckles from King.

During that 2012 tribute, Johnston also said King was like a “kid in a candy store” when he was around his students. There was no better day on the Senate Education Committee than when King brought in his students to testify on legislation, Johnston recalled.

“When I saw what you did in those kids’ lives, those teachers’ lives, they will win where the state Senate will lose,” he said.

Then-senator (and later Senate President) Kevin Grantham, a Republican from Cañon City, dubbed him the “King of Amendments,” which several members also noted during the tribute. Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Arvada, said no one read bills more thoroughly than King, with plenty of amendments to follow.

Grantham recalled King would sometimes sing bill titles on the Senate floor – his bass voice was going to be missed by the Senate choir, he said. Grantham then presented a rendition of the Burger King commercial song, written just for King.

“Hold school finance, hold the budget,

One more amendment, surely cometh,

That bill you hold, there’s no chance that you’ll have it your way.

Committee seconds, are on third reading,

Sponsors quake when you start speaking,

That bill you hold, there’s no chance that you’ll have it your way.

Have it your way, have it your way,

Have it your way, Amendment King.”

Grantham told Colorado Politics King was a great representative for Fremont County, a policy brilliant who knew just where to slice and dice on bills to make them better.

“That’s why he was the Amendment King,” he said. 

Former Speaker of the House Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, called King his friend, and said while they sat on different sides of the aisle, they “always sought common ground where possible and always remained friends first.”

Rep. Don Wilson, R-Monument, called King “a leader in every sense of the word.”

“Keith King was a humble and hard-working man that so many of us looked up to. From his early business successes to his leadership at the State Capitol, and more. Keith had an amazingly positive impact on Colorado that will not be forgotten,” Wilson said. 

Former state Rep. Tim Geitner, R-Falcon, worked for King when the latter served as president of the Colorado Springs City Council. Geitner said King was his mentor, and they shared many conversations around education and other policy development.

“I could always go to King for guidance,” Geitner said.