Voie Commentary: Local Politics Won’t Be the Same Without ‘King Chuck’

Lewis County, Washington’s 3rd Congressional and 20th Legislative districts lost an active, prominent and admittedly infamous voice last week. Dare I say that local news, radio, social media and forum websites won’t be the same without him — whether or not you feel like the world is better off or worse for that is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

I didn’t know Charles E. “Chuck” Haunreiter personally, though I did attend school with some of his family members. Suffice to say what I know of the man paints him as a complex and formidable, yet compelling and iconic character.

In the same breath, he was an eccentric and polarizing figure — to a tragic degree at times. “The truth according to King Charles” often created more enemies for King Chuck than friends.

My first time hearing the name “King Chuck” and understanding from those around me that it was a negative sort of connotation, I was probably 10 or 11 years old. My parents worked for the city and county and even back then — nearly 20 years ago — King Chuck was making waves.

One day, my mom came home from work, parked the minivan in the garage and went in the house. My dad came home, walked in the door cracking up laughing. When my mom asked what was so funny, my dad told her to come to the garage.

He led her to the back of the van where he gestured to a homemade inkjet printer sticker that read “KINGCHUCK.COM” strategically placed across her back license plate.

I think this might have been around the time that he put up the billboard in the back of his truck and city and county employees had been pranking each other back-and-forth over it.

I heard a lot of bluster like that about King Chuck over the years while growing up. By the time I was in high school, I remember reading letters to the editor in The Chronicle from (and about) King Chuck. If I’m being honest, King Chuck’s letters were some of the earliest persuasive writing I really remember — so it’s hard to say that he didn’t have an impact on me as a young writer.

My first real interactions with King Chuck came when The Chronicle launched the Lewis County Buzz forum website back around 2007. It was a public forum site where you created a screen name — whatever you wanted — and were able to debate and discuss local issues. King Chuck was one of the original, regular figures on the site.

At that point, I was a 19-year-old Centralia College student. I named myself “LadyCady” (a nod to Elizabeth Cady Stanton) and went head-to-head with Chuck and other members of the local digital community. Political views aside, King Chuck was a skilled debater. He spoke well and had a mind and memory for sources like a steel trap. Having lost debates to him a few times myself, I’m a better writer today for it.

Yeah, I’m woman enough to admit that, are you?

I got a job with my first political campaign because of my public debates with King Chuck (and others) on the Lewis County Buzz.

Later in life, when I took over The Chronicle’s social media posting from 2012 to 2017, I would encounter King Chuck in a new and interesting capacity: As a page moderator.

We used to joke about it in the newsroom: The “King Chuck Effect.” King Chuck could take a seemingly dry topic that otherwise wouldn’t get much interaction or engagement and turn it into a firestorm. Of course, it gave the editors heartburn, but from a social media perspective, it was hard to hate King Chuck — he boosted digital stats!

There were people who sought to silence his voice through various methods — getting him banned from writing letters to the editor or from posting in digital spaces — but he almost always prevailed. He followed the rules: He only got a letter in the paper every two weeks, just like everyone else.

Even after being blocked from participating in local radio conversations, he was able to find a way to work within boundaries (hat tip to host current radio host Peter Abbarno for his patience and fairness).

King Chuck was even a public critic of my own columns at times.

Did people always deserve the fiery rhetoric they got from King Chuck? No. Was he over-the-top at times? Absolutely. Did he cross lines he shouldn’t have? It would be hard to argue that he didn’t. In fact, in some cases, I simply can’t personally agree with his level of tenacity.

But even with his bombastic nature, he wasn’t always wrong. He was a check on those in power.

For all the negative people had to say about King Chuck, I guess I saw a more human side of him that some. I find myself wondering who will be the next local voice to rise and speak truth to power will be. Or, will billboard protests become a thing of the past without a man like Chuck around?

I don’t know where you’re from, but where I’m from, we raise a glass when a person who impacted your life passes out of respect. So here’s to you, King Chuck. May your weary, weathered, broken spirit find peace in the next life.

P.S. Thanks for the informal debate lessons.

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Brittany Voie is a columnist for The Chronicle. She lives south of Chehalis with her husband and two young sons. She welcomes correspondence from the community at voiedevelopment@comcast.net.