Jack Sanders' Brother-in-Law Tom Kennedy Dead

[John Quincy]

The son of "infamous" WAKY DJ, the late Jack Sanders (a.k.a. James Dale Spence) just let me know that Jack's ex-brother-in-law, Tom D. Kennedy, passed away last month. (This is not to be confused with the Tom Kennedy that worked at WKLO or the famous TV game show host.)

Over the five years that 79WAKY.com, Tom and I have been in contact several times. Despite Jack's "issues" and the divorce from Tom's sister, he remained a big fan of Sanders. Tom often bemoaned the loss of several reels of Jack's WAKY airchecks during a cross-country many years ago. (We're still hoping to find a WAKY aircheck of Jack Sanders...someday.)

Tom wrote about Jack here:

79waky.com/jacksanders.htm

You can also see pics of Tom as a wee lad with Jack in the WAKY studios.

Thank you Tom for your support of 79WAKY.com and for your contributions to the legacy of Jack Sanders.

Here's Tom's funeral info:

Services for Dr. Tommy Dale Kennedy, 63, of Longview, are scheduled for 10 a.m. today, May 13, 2010, in the Chapel of Welch Funeral Home, 4619 Judson Road, with the Rev. Jay Van Zandt officiating. Dr. Kennedy died on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, in Longview.

Dr. Kennedy was born May 23, 1946, in Longview, to C.F. "Frank" and Lavelle Harper Kennedy. Preceding him in death was his father and sister, Carole Ann Kennedy Spence. He is survived by his mother, Lavelle Kennedy of White Oak.

Dr. Kennedy graduated high school in White Oak; he received his associate arts at Kilgore College, his BA from Stephen F. Austin, and EdD, MS, MA from East Texas State.

He worked at Murray State University as Associate Professor of Journalism, Radio-TV in 1981; City of Longview Public Information Director from 1979 - 1981; East Texas State University Radio-TV Instructor from 1976-1979; KTBS-TV News Production Anchor from 1973-1976; Texas Association for Ed Tech in 1976; American Film Institution in 1977. He had received honors from Phi Delta Kappa Service Citation for Award-Winning Film in 1979; Instructor Magazine cited for Cinematography on Phi Delta Kappa film in top 20 Education Films in Nation in 1999; News anchor for KFRO Radio; Eng. professor at Texas State Technical College in Marshall; volunteer for East Texas Literacy Council in Longview; and an avid ham radio operator.

Dr. Kennedy was also a member of Sigma Delta Chi, Professional Journalistic Society; completed SKYWARN Basic Storm Spotter training; and a member of the National Broadcasting Society.

Serving as pallbearers will be Sonny Blue, Reggie Reynolds, Lloyd Smith, Randall Smith, Ronnie McKinney, and Johnny Moss.

Memorials may be made to the American Diabetes Association , National Processing Center, P.O. Box 11454, Alexandria, Virginia 22312.

An online registry may be signed at www.news-journal.com, by clicking on the obituaries link. Published in Longview News-Journal on May 13, 2010

[John Quincy]

Here's the first e-mail I received from Tom D. Kennedy, dated 2/13/2005:

I've just learned of your tribute site to WAKY--something that is long overdue.

I was Jack Sanders' brother in law and was privy to a lot of the activity surrounding WAKY's emergence in late 1959. I still have a few pieces of memorabilia and will be happy to factually contribute to your site in any way possible.

I up until 1981 had about 60 hours of WAKY air checks on Jack, Jim Brand, Tim Tyler, and others. Unfortunately I allowed the tapes to be separated from me instead of religiously protecting them as I always had, and they were lost in transit by the movers -- oddly enough when I was moving to Kentucky to begin a university teaching job at Murray State University -- only a few hours removed from Louisville where the air checks originated. For some reason there seem to be few, if any, air checks from those early trend setting days of seven-nine-oh.

I also had a collection of about 600 negatives and prints I had shot of the WAKY studios, the jocks--the whole layout. In 1976 I had given the entire set to Jack, and after his death in 1978 I went on a six-month campaign to retrieve the pictures, but no one knew anything about them. Odd, but the mysteriously disappearing tapes and pictures seemed to be a sign that the early-WAKY era was never to live again, even vicariously. I have even tried through various sources close to the late Gordon McLendon, including his son, Bart, to perhaps locate air checks in McLendon's personal archives -- he maintained complete off-air libraries on all jocks at all his stations in those years. All his papers and personal industry effects were donated to the mass communications sequence at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. McLendon must have known someone in the department because the program is not outstanding in any way. Their forte is teaching public relations courses (country club journalism), not broadcasting. When I checked with them they hadn't even cataloged and indexed the material. The attitude was, "We haven't listened to any of it yet and if we allow you access we won't be the first outsiders to hear whatever is in the collection." I'm afraid it's an all-too-prevalent attitude among academics. I taught broadcasting and mass comm at the university level for 30 years and know all too well the "it's ours and you can't touch it" mindset.

I do notice in your first phase of the WAKY site that Jack's "real last name" was noted as being "Sanderson." He was born James Dale Spence in Kansas. The sobriquet Jack Sanders was born at KGKO in Dallas in 1956 when the PD told him, "Jim Spence sounds like the name of the guy who delivers my mail. From now on you are Jack Sanders." And so it was until he died in Nashville in February, 1978, of liver disease and pneumonia.

Congratulations and good luck on your site. It will contribute tremendously to a lost era in radio.

Tom Kennedy, Ph D.
903-291-0799

[Travis]

I enjoyed Tom's letter the first time I read it and it was good to read it again.

Since the inception of this website, I have hoped that airchecks of the legendary Jumpin' Jack Sanders would surface. Jack was before my time (as a WAKY listener) but is such a legendary figure in the history of WAKY's jocks that airchecks of this man are so sorely missing from this site. With the passing of Tom D. Kennedy, the trail to any existing Jack Sanders' airchecks grows colder, but stranger things have happened, such as the time rare airchecks of Johnny Randolph's days at WKLO were found in his ex-wife's trash can (insert rim-shot here). LOL!!

Okay, that was so wrong.

Anyway. Regardless of how cold the trail may be, there will always be hope that Sanders' airchecks will someday surface and find their way to 79WAKY.com.