Bradfield Honored by Sunrise Rotary
By Dr. Cassy Burleson
Rick Bradfield hated getting up early….
… But he made it to Waco Sunrise Rotary meetings for more than 19 years before he died unexpectedly of a heart attack Sept. 2, 2021.
Club members are honoring Bradfield by planting a tree and putting a bench beside it in a grassy area at KWTX-TV, where Bradfield served 45 years, his last title being Managing Editor after winning every award he could win as a broadcast journalist.
Bradfield’s Rotary buddy and UBS Financial Adviser Joe Calao, formerly of KWTX-TV, said, “Rick was the editor of our weekly newsletter. We all couldn’t wait until the end to read his dry sense of wit and humor. He was steady, funny – and always polite. Rick was a true southern gentleman. He was sharp as a tack, well read and educated, and is missed by many.”
Bradfield also loved to teach and was a Baylor adjunct faculty member from 1996-2020, serving first as JPR&NM’s Radford Chair. He continued to teach Electronic Newswriting on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of eating lunch for about 25 years, joking he gave back all the money he earned – and more – to pay for his son Rob’s tuition.
Bradfield loved being outdoors.
Environment is the most recent addition to Rotary’s seven service areas.
Before leaving Bolder for Baylor at 17, Bradfield frequently climbed Colorado’s Flatirons (see photo), was a better-than-good skier, made Eagle Scout at 12, joined the Rocky Mountain Rescue Team at 15, and frequently donated to many environmental causes.
His wife Lisa, also a Baylor graduate, loved plants. Lisa died in 2012 after four difficult bouts with cancer. They both loved lazy days and views from the family beach house in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Bradfield described Lisa in her obituary as “an artist on canvas and a magician in the kitchen who grew her own herbs in a backyard garden ringed with bay trees and fragrant rosemary bushes filled with flocks of noisy sparrows.”
Bradfield’s sister, Nancy Valentine of Erie, Colorado, explained that after Lisa’s funeral, she and Bradfield “talked about how God is in Nature … talked about the different trees in the yard, the sky, the plants, Lisa’s beautiful gardens, the plants she’d planted, and how God was in all of nature.”
Sunrise Club Rotarian Margaret Ferguson, a Waco author, said planting a tree and setting up a bench where anyone could sit to admire nature and an occasional breeze seemed an appropriate memorial.
Bradfield was a true newsman described by the Waco Tribune-Herald as the “backbone” of KWTX-TV.
People were more than numbers to Bradfield as he covered all of Waco’s national news stories: the Luby’s shooting, Branch Davidians standoff, Twin Peaks shootout and COVID’s rising death count.
He had compassion for good causes and was a thoughtful, patient man – except when it came to shoddy reporting – and said he was known to have kicked a trashcan or two in his younger days.
Dr. Marilyn J. Meyers, now a Longmont psychologist, dated Bradfield in high school. “One time Rick took me up to the back of a small Flatiron to show me how to climb up the rope and then rappel down. I … ultimately refused due to fear. I don’t recall him getting mad – (even though) he’d spent a lot of time setting it up.… And he was only 16. “He also took me skiing for the first time … and spent the whole morning teaching me how to side-step up the hill and then snowplow down…. I finally got brave enough to go up by the afternoon,” Myers said, adding that Bradfield had a world view even then and got her involved in the Japanese Exchange Club.
Rick Bradfield’s Legacy Award celebrates Breaking News & Investigative Reporters.
Shortly after his death, family and friends established the Rick Bradfield Award for Breaking News and Investigative Reporting.
Contest judges include his son, Rob, family (including his “professional daughter” Julie Hays, a KWTX-TV anchor, and current KWTX-TV Station Manager Bob Walters), Baylor Senior Lecturer Cassy Burleson, and “48 Hours” producer Claire St. Amant, a Baylor grad who is JPR&NM’s 2022 Alumna of the Year. Baylor sophomore News/Editorial sequence major George Schroeder received the inaugural award (a $1,000 check) at the Spring 2022 JPR&NM Awards Ceremony April 22.
“It's an honor to receive any award from the department. But to be the inaugural winner of the Rick Bradfield Award is truly special,” Schroeder said, adding that because of Bradfield’s dedication to students and his notable KWTX-TV career, “the award carries a lot of weight. It’s significant to place my name under his in this fashion, and his legacy is a testament to his hard work and dedication. I hope one day I can be as impactful as him.”
Folks who want to donate to the Bradfield fund online can click directly on the link below.
Direct link to Bradfield Award fund: https://waco.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create?funit_id=2436
If you’d like to send a check, make it out to Waco Foundation, include “Rick Bradfield Fund” in the memo line, and mail it to Waco Foundation, 1227 N. Valley Mills, Suite 235, Waco, TX 76710.
All donations are deposited directly into the fund and are tax-deductible.
SHOES TO FILL ~
in Memory of Rick Bradfield
Written by Nathan Brown, Oklahoma Poet Laureate,
Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021
“Something you might click to open”
13-Across… in the upper right corner
of The Times Sunday crossword puzzle.
You have to wonder if it was the first
three-square answer that he filled in
on the last puzzle he ever solved.
And over a lifetime as a journalist,
he’d solved his share. Some much
messier, more dark and difficult,
than those Times saw fit to print.
A paper he might have respected,
but never felt a need to work for.
He did his good work where he
felt called to do it. So determined
to leave a wake of better journalists.
A calling he took quite seriously…
one he believed our future survival
might truly and terribly depend upon.
That’s why the void left in his passing
is so severely quiet, a soul could
hear a pen click.