A journalist who impressed many together with his 330-mile stroll from Washington, D.C., to New York City, has died. He was 65.
Neil King Jr., a former world economics editor for the Wall Street Journal, died on Tuesday, Sept. 17, from issues associated to esophageal most cancers, his spouse, Shailagh Murray, instructed The Washington Post.
King, who received a bachelor's diploma in philosophy from Columbia University earlier than graduating from Northwestern's Medill Graduate School of Journalism, moved to Prague in 1992 as a contract correspondent, in accordance to his WSJ bio.
While overseas, King additionally started working for the newspaper, the place he had a quantity of roles over time — and because the Post famous, he contributed to WSJ‘s Pulitzer-Prize profitable protection of the Sept. 11 terrorist assaults. He left the paper in 2016.
In March 2021, he set off on an unbelievable 330-mile journey, which he chronicled in his 2023 e-book, American Ramble.
According to his website, the journey “began as a whim and soon became an obsession” — and “by the spring of 2021, events had intervened that gave his desire greater urgency.”
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“Determined to rediscover what matters in life and to see our national story with new eyes, Neil turned north with a small satchel on his back and one mission in mind: To pay close attention to the land he crossed and the people he met,” learn an outline of the e-book — and over the course of the 26-day journey, that is precisely what he did.
“There just really is a different America out any of our doors if we go about it at the pace of a walker, do it over a stretch of time, and really truly pay attention,” he instructed The Washingtonian final yr.
“The earth below our toes and [being] out on this planet itself is a tangible factor,” he added. “The longer I went, the extra I used to be in sync with issues.”
In July to commemorate his sixty fifth birthday, King mirrored on his life and most cancers journey in an emotional Facebook post.
“I remember feeling embarrassed when I turned forty, and again, still more, when I turned 50,” he wrote.
“Then a prognosis at 58 put the entire of my sixties doubtful and upended my sense of time. Instead of mourning its passage, I discovered to have fun the having of it,” he added. “Today, I'm proud to be 65. I'm blaring it from the rooftops.”
In addition to his spouse, King is survived by their two daughters, Lillian and Frances.