Maine Senator-Elect Has Alexandria Roots

Maine’s new senator-elect may not miss the traffic in the Washington metro area, but he’s glad to return to the area where he grew up.

Newly-elected Sen. Angus King Jr., an independent who plans to caucus with the Democrats, was born in 1944 in Alexandria and lived in the city until he graduated from then-Hammond High School and left for college.

“I am looking forward to getting back in the area,” King told Patch. “I’ve remained a lifelong Redskins fan, and I still have family there.”

King’s Alexandria roots stretch far back. Both sides of his family came to the city after the Civil War — his father’s side from Charlottesville and his mother’s side from Northern Neck — and his grandparents were born in Alexandria. His grandfather, Edmund Ticer, was mayor of Alexandria in the 1930s and worked for Southern Railway.

King spent most of his youth living near Quaker Lane and attended Alexandria City Public Schools. He graduated from Hammond in 1962 and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in government from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. He then attended University of Virginia School of Law, graduating in 1969.

King’s youth helped prepare him for a life of public service.

“Clearly, growing up in Alexandria, you are connected to the national news,” he said. “We got the Washington Post every morning. The discussion around our dinner table was generally around politics in the news. … In that sense, growing up in Alexandria, you’re close to the capital and what’s going on.”

Following graduation from law school, King joined the National Legal Services Program, which assigned him a law position in Maine. He’s stayed there ever since, except for two years in the mid-1970s when he worked as a staff member for Maine Sen. William Hathaway in Washington.

King’s aunt, Patsy Ticer, was herself mayor of Alexandria in the 1990s before becoming a state senator.

King is the first independent from Maine elected to serve in the U.S. Senate. He is a former two-term governor and will take the seat being vacated by Sen. Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican.

He is married to Mary Herman and has four sons, Angus III, Duncan, James and Ben; one daughter, Molly; and five grandchildren.