Crystal Wise
Bud Kennedy has enough stories to fill the biggest industrial warehouse in the Alliance corridor.
That’s the result of 50 years in the wild, wacky world of journalism, more specifically newspapering or what we call today multiplatform news configurations.
Since 1987, Kennedy has been the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s lead news columnist. A couple of years before that, he began his “Eats Beat” food column. Hundreds of thousands of words have been written since then on every topic imaginable that impacts the city — as well as enchiladas — subject matter that is a source of praise and denunciation but never silence, particularly today on social media, which he has used so effectively to communicate with readers.
He is the paper’s best-known newsman and personality. He is the face of the Star-Telegram.
“I tell people I've had this job nearly 35 years — and I haven't been fired, sued, or shot at,” Kennedy says. “I'll let everybody decide whether that means I've done a good or a bad job!”
Today, he is a Fort Worth staple and genuinely great guy with an incredibly rich bank of knowledge about Fort Worth and its history. I ask him often for his insight on Fort Worth historical subjects and the city’s neighborhoods. As it concerns current news events, he knows so much about local topics simply because he has been following the subject or a derivative for decades.
Kennedy’s career, of course, spans more than a mere 35 years. His life in newspapers and, now, digital platforms was Gumpian, if you, the reader, will permit the license and neologism.
He made his first appearance in the newspaper before he was even born. He was sold for $600 in a Star-Telegram classified ad under the section, “Babies for Adoption.” Until 1957, that was legal in Texas, he notes. Four years later, he says his mother convinced the Fort Worth Press to write a story about the 4-year-old boy who could type and read. At age 11, he wrote the Press and asked for a tour. They obliged, and Kennedy recalls the editor, Walter Humphrey, telling him to come back some day, and “he’d give me a job.”
“I took him up on that the week after I graduated from high school.”
His first byline in any paper was a complete accident.
Crystal Wise
The Star-Telegram had called when he was at the Arlington Heights school newspaper. Kennedy was a senior. The paper wanted him to call in the Yellow Jackets’ score and stats from their game in San Angelo, and he agreed to do so. But when he called the line, the operator transferred him to the wrong call taker, who told me to dictate a story.
“So, I did,” Kennedy says.
The Heights story — the Jackets took a beating in San Angelo — the next morning had a “Bud Kennedy” byline with an erroneous, at least in the early editions, tag of “Star-Telegram Sports Writer.”
If you know anything about newspapers, you know the right hand never knows what the left is doing.
To wit: “On Monday [the editor] called fuming,” Kennedy recalls. “He said I didn't follow instructions, and now he'd have to pay me $5 extra. He said I would never again do anything for the Star-Telegram.”
Firing a guy who didn’t even work for him.
“On Thursday he called back and sent me to cover Crowley and Cedar Hill.”
Ho-ho-ho.
“Heights had a great journalism teacher who reeled me in,” he recalls. “In one day in high school, I won state in UIL headline writing, then came home and won a baseball game for Heights [as a reporter] by catching Carter batting out of order on a game-tying double in the seventh inning.”
Kennedy has worked as a writer, reporter, editor, or columnist ever since. His stops have included the Press, Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Times-Herald, and Dallas Morning News.
Working for the Press three weeks out of high school, he was covering the Rangers and Brewers major-league game.
“I always wanted to report like Gary Cartwright and Tommy Thompson, and write as well as Whit Canning,” he says. “At the Press I learned about the legacy of Dan Jenkins, Bud Shrake, and Cartwright.”
That was all now more than 50 years ago. Ask Kennedy about retirement as he knocks on the door of 70.
“I am still doing what I did in high school. I have not even thought about growing up yet, much less retiring. I wanted to take journalism at Stripling, but the counselor said I didn't have any aptitude for it and should stick to math. A lot of readers over the years think he was right!”
