Rick Bradfield hated getting up early.
However he made it to Waco Dawn Rotary membership conferences for greater than 19 years earlier than he died unexpectedly of a coronary heart assault Sept. 2, 2021.
Membership members are honoring Bradfield by planting a tree and placing a bench beside it in a grassy space at KWTX-TV in Waco, the place Bradfield served faithfully as Information Supervisor for 45 years, profitable each award he might win as a broadcast journalist.
Bradfield’s Rotary buddy and UBS Monetary Adviser Joe Calao, previously of KWTX-TV, mentioned, “Rick was the editor of our weekly publication. All of us couldn’t wait till the top to learn his dry sense of wit and humor. He was regular, humorous – and at all times well mannered. Rick was a real southern gentleman. He was sharp as a tack, properly learn and educated, and is missed by many.”
Bradfield additionally liked to show and was a Baylor adjunct school member from 1996-2020, serving first as JPR&NM’s Radford Chair, then persevering with to show Digital Newswriting on Tuesdays and Thursdays as an alternative of consuming lunch for about 25 years. He joked that he gave all the cash again he ever earned – and extra – to pay for his son Rob’s tuition.
Bradfield liked being outdoor.
Rotary Worldwide has seven areas of service. Surroundings is the newest addition.
Earlier than leaving Bolder for Baylor at 17, Bradfield often climbed Colorado’s Flatirons, was a better-than-good skier, made Explorer Scout at 12, joined the Rocky Mountain Rescue Workforce at 15, and often donated to many environmental causes.
Bradfield’s spouse Lisa, additionally a Baylor graduate, died in 2012 after 4 tough bouts with most cancers. They each liked the seashore, particularly from the views on the household seashore home in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Lisa was described within the obituary written by Bradfield as “an artist on canvas and a magician within the kitchen who grew her personal herbs in a yard backyard ringed with bay bushes and aromatic rosemary bushes full of flocks of noisy sparrows.”
Bradfield’s sister, Nancy Valentine of Erie, Colorado, defined that after Lisa’s funeral, she and Bradfield “talked about how God is in Nature … concerning the completely different bushes within the yard, the sky, the crops, Lisa’s stunning gardens, the crops she’d planted, and the way God was in all of nature.”
Dawn Membership Rotarian Margaret Ferguson, a Waco creator, mentioned planting a tree and organising a bench the place anybody might sit to admire nature and an occasional breeze appeared most applicable.
Bradfield Award Celebrates Breaking Information & Investigative Reporters
Shortly after Bradfield’s loss of life, household and buddies established the Rick Bradfield Award for Breaking Information and Investigative Reporting.
Contest judges for the $1,000 test embrace his son, Rob, household (together with his “skilled daughter” Julie Hays, a KWTX-TV anchor, and present KWTX-TV Station Supervisor Bob Walters), Baylor Senior Lecturer Cassy Burleson, and “48 Hours” producer Claire St. Amant, a Baylor grad who’s JPR&NM’s 2022 Alumna of the Yr. Baylor sophomore Information/Editorial sequence main George Schroeder acquired the inaugural award on the Spring 2022 JPR&NM Awards Ceremony April 22.
Of us who wish to donate to the Bradfield fund on-line can click on instantly on the hyperlink under.
Direct hyperlink to Bradfield Award fund: https://waco.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create?funit_id=2436
In the event you’d prefer to ship a test, make it out to Waco Basis, embrace “Rick Bradfield Fund” within the memo line, and mail it to Waco Basis, 1227 N. Valley Mills, Suite 235, Waco, TX 76710.
All donations are deposited instantly into the fund and are tax-deductible.
Recollections
At Lake Brazos Restaurant
He was a fledging KWTX
Climbing the Flatirons
Visitor Speaker at one in all Dr. Burleson’s class
