San Antonio radio legend Ricci Ware dies

Ricci Ware and Jud Ashmore on Ware's last day at KTSA. Ricci Ware and Jud Ashmore on Ware's last day at KTSA. Photo: Photo Courtesy Of Brent Boller Photo: Photo Courtesy Of Brent Boller Image 1 of / 44 Caption Close San Antonio radio legend Ricci Ware dies 1 / 44 Back to Gallery

Legendary San Antonio broadcast voice Ricci Ware, a staple of both rock ’n’ roll and news talk radio for more than half a century, died Friday. He was 79.

Ware was inducted into both the San Antonio and Texas radio halls of fame.

His last broadcast gig was as a talk show host on KTSA, the station he called home for most of his radio career.

He was one of the airwaves’ most outspoken conservatives — even raising the flagging spirits of Barbara Bush during a 1992 radio hookup with the then-first lady. National polls may not have favored a George Bush win over Bill Clinton that year, but Ware informed her that a KTSA straw poll was overwhelmingly pro-Bush, adding: “Yup, there’s no doubt in my mind that George is going to whip ‘Slick Willie.’”

Between his gigs on KTSA, Ware and Jud Ashmore helmed a rowdy morning program for a decade in the ’70s and ’80s on old country station KBUC. On the duo’s infamous “Ricci and Jud Show,” they regularly raised the blood pressure of local liberals and made headlines by picketing City Hall over hot-button issues.

“Ricci was a rock star,” Ashmore recalled. “He was totally unpredictable, very honest. He called it like he saw it.”

Ashmore, also a television weatherman for many years, recounted a time when Ware filled in for him on TV. “One night he walked in with a pistol on each hip and went out and did the weather. He took those guns out — they had blanks — and he took one of those damn guns out and fired at the weather screen. He got everybody’s attention that way. He was a master at that. ”

Ware may have cemented his reputation in talk, but he got his start as a disc jockey. He was hired out of Austin by KTSA in the late ’50s. He, along with Bruce Hathaway, quickly became household names during the station’s rock ’n’ roll heyday of the ’60s.

“He shouldn’t be dead. He and I should just now be getting out of prison for all the fun and happiness that we had,” Hathaway said. “He was one of my dearest friends, and we raised hell. We were like brothers. It’s just a sad day.”

Musician Augie Meyers recalled the salt and the pepper that was Ricci Ware.

“We used to play his record hops back in the ’50s,” said Meyers, who was part of teen combo the Goldens before the Sir Douglas Quintet hit it big with “She’s About a Mover.”

“We were all great friends. He’d call Sir Douglas Quintet ‘Oh, my boys from Texas.’”

That changed, however, when the band was busted for marijuana possession in Corpus Christi in late ’65.

“After we got popped in Corpus, he was, ‘Oh, man. They ain’t my boys no more.’ He broke our records on the radio. But we talked through the years. We always remained friends. He was a powerhouse.”

Even radio competitors loved him. Former KEDA personality Ricky “Guero Polkas” Davila recalled the days in the late ’50s and early ’60s when Ware promoted dances.

“He helped everybody,” Davila said. “He played the Sunglows ‘La Cacahuata’ polka. He played that on KTSA!”

Ware also was considered a founding father of racing in San Antonio. He had a passion for motor sports and famously voiced commercials for Alamo Dragway and San Antonio Raceway.

Driver and motor sports expert Bruce Mabrito recalled fun times during the ’70s at Pan American Speedway, the track Ware operated in northeast Bexar County.

“I raced there a lot,” Mabrito, said, recounting that Ware’s wife, Mimi, handed out prize money on Saturday nights. “He had an effervescent personality. … He made racing fun, exciting, and the fans loved it.”

Ware shared his love of fast cars with sons Ricci Ware Jr. and Trey Ware, now a KTSA morning talk host.

Trey Ware, who co-hosted with his dad for many years, posted a farewell to his father on Facebook.

“My hero returned home to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ this morning. My dad, Ricci Ware, was my hero in every sense of the word,” he wrote.

“He was a one-of-a-kind talent who had the natural ability to make you laugh and feel better about life in all circumstances. He could also cause you to think — deeply.”