Kidd Kraddick's Big Secret

Jamie Thompson:

On the last night of his life, Kidd Kraddick picked out a stranger on a street corner in the French Quarter. It was a broiling evening last July in New Orleans. Kraddick had just left an oyster bar and had spotted the man selling pirated DVDs out of his trunk. Kraddick's small entourage, a collection of friends and business partners, walked past the young man, nodding politely. But Kraddick stopped.

What are you doing? Why are you selling these? Don't you know that's illegal?

Kraddick's friends, waiting for him, were annoyed, eager to get on with their evening. But that's what made Kraddick one of the most successful radio hosts in the country—always asking questions, familiar with strangers, forever in search of a story. For decades, he had been plucking people out of crowds and putting them on the air, sometimes even giving them jobs. Kidd Kraddick in the Morning, broadcast from Kraddick's own studio in Irving, was a ratings juggernaut that was syndicated across the country. He'd built that radio empire by taking an interest in normal people like the DVD hawker, changing their lives.

Lately, though, Kraddick had been making changes in his own life. At 53, he'd proposed to his girlfriend, who was 21 years younger. He'd apologized to his 23-year-old daughter for using her life as material on his show, sometimes without thinking about how it affected her. He had also begun to craft a succession plan to keep his radio show and his beloved charity operating after he was gone.