By 3:45 a.m., the constellations have begun their fall toward the western horizon. Below them, the people of North Texas are mostly asleep, dreaming 6½ million different dreams. But in downtown Dallas, Alaric Mack, 50, known to listeners of the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show as Big Al, is rising. “They pay me to wake up,” he says. “The rest is free.” By 4:50 a.m., Mack’s in his summer uniform of knee-length shorts and beach sandals and parking his black pickup in Las Colinas. There, he navigates a maze of windowless halls toward the studio and the daily convocation of the survivors. A year ago, on July 27, Kidd Kraddick, the nationally syndicated radio host, collapsed and died at a Louisiana golf tournament benefiting his charity, Kidd’s Kids. He was 53. Less than 48 hours later, Kraddick’s four co-hosts, Mack, Kellie Rasberry, Jose “J-Si” Chavez and Jenna Owens, were back on the air. But broadcast executives were quietly assembling to handicap whether the Kraddick show had a future without its frontman. One eyebrow raised in dissent and the plug might have been pulled forever. “I think they were waiting for us to crash and burn,” says Chavez, an earnest 31-year-old Mexico City transplant, raised in San Diego. “We crashed some, but we didn’t burn.” Kidd Kraddick had been a morning-radio prophet who delivered the holy demographic: female listeners between 18 and 49. In that key demo, he was ranked either first or second in 75 percent of the markets that carried his show. SLIDESHOW: Kidd Kraddick through the years One year after his death, the survivors have achieved a remarkable bit of alchemy. They are currently in first or second place in 95 percent of their markets. It is 5:58 a.m., and they are at their usual stations, all except Chavez. Though imperceptible to the listener, he now stands in Kraddick’s spot, running “the board” and leading the show. To his left sits the 30-year-old Owens, a perfectly accessorized brunette who can be enticing and witty in the same sentence. Across the enormous wood-trimmed table, Rasberry takes her seat with her back to the window. Her signature red hair brushes her shoulders. In the listeners’ minds, Rasberry is the Widow Kraddick. The Kidd-and-Kellie chemistry, their 19 years of bickering wrapped in an aura of mutual admiration, was the show’s heartbeat. “I spent more time with him than any man in my entire life,” Rasberry says. “People could tell we really loved each other.” “Kidd told me he would have paid Kellie all the money he had in the world, if she would ever ask for a raise,” Owens says. “That’s how talented he thought she was.” Behind a glass divider, in-studio producer Shanon Murphy watches a large LED clock on the wall. Dubbed “Psycho” Shanon by Kraddick, she was his third hand, an intern who came on board at 17 and has stayed for 15 years. I spent more time with him than any man in my entire life. People could tell we really loved each other.” Kellie Rasberry With one minute to air, scripts are quietly shuffled, computers are given a last glance. There is a hushed, workmanlike majesty to this ritual until Mack waves his hands to cast out the grogginess. At 6 a.m., when Murphy pushes forward four faders, the voices of Rasberry, Mack, Chavez and Owens are raised against the receding darkness in Dallas; Fort Worth; San Antonio; New Orleans; Gulfport, Miss.; Savannah, Ga.; New London, Conn.; Sault St. Marie, Mich.; Bismarck, N.D.; Wichita, Kan.; Bend, Ore.; Yuma, Ariz.; and dozens of other cities across America. With a victorious inflection, Mack says, “The Kidd Kraddick Morning Show has begun!”

Jose “J-Si” Chavez, left, and Jenna Owens work their magic on the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show one year after Kraddick’s unexpected death in Gretna, La. (David Woo/Staff Photographer)

Kraddick High-Five By 2011, David Peter Cradick, known to radio listeners as Kidd Kraddick, had outrun death once before. Aggressive treatments had purged his body of the lymphoma that he had kept secret from even those closest to him. The national syndication of his show poured revenue into his company, YEA Networks. But if it were to have lasting market value, YEA had to do more than deposit checks from the show. That led Kraddick to invite George Laughlin for sushi at Steel in Oak Lawn to develop a plan. When they first met in 1993, Laughlin was a comer, a handsome, 20-something ad salesman for KHKS-FM (106.1), known as Kiss FM. But when he joined Kraddick at Steel, Laughlin was a seasoned pro with a full head of gray hair. The founder of Gap Broadcasting, Laughlin had purchased more than 100 radio stations and merged Gap with Regent to create Townsquare Media. As their sushi sat uneaten, the casually dressed Kraddick pressed Laughlin to be CEO of his company, even though he couldn’t match what Townsquare paid.


Sitting on a bar stool, Kraddick bored in: “George, who are you gonna high-five at the end of the day?” “Kidd knew that I went from the founder of Gap to employee at Townsquare,” Laughlin says. “I’m here to high-five you,” Kraddick said, revving his sales pitch. “Let’s go win this thing. Let’s go kick ass.” “That’s how he got me,” Laughlin says. In April 2011, YEA Networks introduced a new CEO: George Laughlin.

Kellie Rasberry, left, and “Big Al” Mack listen to one of their co-hosts on the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show. “Kidd told me he would have paid Kellie all the money he had in the world if she would ever ask for a raise,” co-host Jenna Owens said of Rasberry. (David Woo/Staff Photographer)

Sweating it out in New Orleans Below Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River snakes through marshland and into New Orleans, where the July heat churns up a swampy humidity. But it dissipates in the windowless, climate-controlled Harrah’s casino, where the craps games are grouped along a wide center aisle. SLIDESHOW: Guests of the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show At the second table past the cashier’s cage, the minimum bet is $15 and the maximum is $10,000. A veteran croupier pays out and seizes thousands per roll and simultaneously needles the stick man who pushes dice at a new shooter: “He’s so old, all of his kids work here and his grandkids are in school to work here.” Kraddick spent the last night of his life at this table with Laughlin, spreading bets across the green felt. Then, on Saturday morning, Kraddick was up and ready to ride with the cast to a golf tournament for Kidd’s Kids, his nonprofit that took chronically ill children to Walt Disney World. By 10 a.m., the cast was curbside, boarding a limo bus — a small shuttle bus retrofitted with black leather sofas, flat-screen TVs and crystal cocktail tumblers. “I was sweating all night,” Kraddick told Mack. “I wasn’t feeling well.” Mack adds a refrain that is spoken by several people present: “I didn’t think anything of it.” On the bus, Kraddick again said that he didn’t feel well. “None of us felt well,” Owens said. “I didn’t think anything of it.” In layman’s terms, Kraddick had been having the classic symptoms of a heart attack since the night before. A young man at the wheel chauffeured the Kraddick team along U.S. 90 and across the Mississippi River into Jefferson Parish. Minutes later, he turned into the driveway of the Timberlane Country Club. As Kraddick walked toward the low-slung clubhouse, tournament founder Mindi Hartzog threw her arms around him while a camera shutter clicked. The resulting photo is the first in a series that captured the last minutes of his life. Having skipped breakfast, Kraddick grabbed one of the Chick-fil-A sandwiches being given to the golfers and got behind the wheel of a cart with a sweating Laughlin beside him. Owens followed separately. At the first tee, Kraddick again said he felt bad. So Owens, a golfer, took the first drive of the tournament for him. Seated on the grass beside the tee box, a nauseated Kraddick spit out his sandwich and quickly cleared his mouth with some Powerade. As Owens’ ball sailed down the fairway, Kraddick smiled at his youngest cast member and said, “Great shot.” Then he climbed into the passenger seat of his cart. Passing Rasberry, Laughlin drove Kraddick back to the air-conditioned cocoon of the limo bus and Kraddick lay down on his back on the driver’s-side sofa, his perspiration-stained blue shirt pressing against the black leather. “Hey man, can you get me a water?” Kraddick asked. Laughlin pulled open the ice drawer from underneath the opposite sofa and handed his friend a bottle and Kraddick grasped it. Once Laughlin’s eyes were off Kraddick, he heard an ominous thud as the bottle hit the floor. Kidd Kraddick Morning Show co-hosts Jenna Owens, “J-Si” Chavez, “Big Al” Mack and Kellie Rasberry were on the air July 29, 2013, the Monday morning after Kraddick’s death. They took time to meet with grieving fans outside their Las Colinas studios. (Tom Fox, Staff Photographer) The Road Out The Ochsner Medical Center-West Bank was less than a mile and a half away, so the driver turned the bus onto Timberlane Drive and began to speed past the houses that line the golf course. With his own white sports shirt already saturated, a frantic Laughlin pulled Kraddick to the floor and began to blow into his mouth and pump on his chest. The driver raced along and the rear compartment rose and fell like a carnival ride as the pavement alternated between blacktop and concrete. But Kraddick was still. The more tightly Laughlin grasped for a thread of life, the more quickly it slipped through his hands and drifted away from the bus that was pushing through traffic on the Belle Chasse Highway. At Ochsner, Kraddick was carried out and placed on a gurney. Laughlin entered the emergency room at his side, searching for but not finding a glimmer of life. At Timberlane, all four co-hosts were inside posing for photos when Owens’ cellphone rang. She answered and put it to her ear. Her knees buckled and she fell to the burgundy carpet crying out, “No! No! No! No!” Chavez grabbed the phone and heard the bus driver say, “Kidd’s dead.” “There was no hope in me,” Owens says. “Every part of me knew Kidd was not alive.” Arriving at Ochsner, the Kraddick cast was led to a space Mack calls “the little room,” where Laughlin and a doctor confirmed the news. “I just remember being on the ground on Al’s lap saying, ‘I wanted to be the hero. I wanted to save him,’” Laughlin says. Asked by the doctor if they wanted to say goodbye, they all assented. And one irrational shard of hope lodged in the minds of Rasberry, Mack and Chavez. According to Rasberry, “Part of me thought we were going to get back there and he was going to jump up and say, ‘Ha!’” In an instant, doubts and hopes were extinguished. “I couldn’t stop staring at him thinking, ‘What can I do to wake you up?’” Chavez says. “No matter how many times I touched his forehead or held his hand, he was colder each time.” “I shook my head, ‘No,’ for about an hour because I could not believe that this was happening,” Mack says. I couldn’t stop staring at him thinking, ‘What can I do to wake you up?’ No matter how many times I touched his forehead or held his hand, he was colder each time.” Jose “J-Si” Chavez A nurse wept. She was the first to have an epiphany that would quickly spread across the country. Morning radio fills the intimate space that comes after sleep but before daily life. Kidd Kraddick had set up camp in that space. When he died, the sense of loss was as jarring as the news of his death. And then came the second epiphany. “There was a very good possibility that on Monday, I would be out of a job,” Chavez says. “My wife was pregnant, about to pop, and I had just bought a house.” Kraddick’s death triggered the retirement clause in his company’s contract with Clear Channel Communications, owner of Kiss FM. Without Kraddick, Clear Channel would no longer pay his YEA Networks and no longer carry the Kraddick show on Kiss FM, the largest of the 70 stations that broadcast the show. Without the revenue from Clear Channel or a quick substitute, the show would not be financially viable. Before the sun set on July 27, Laughlin was trying to save Kraddick’s show. Landing that evening at Love Field, Laughlin drove home to his wife and three kids, grabbed one drink, then went to the Kiss FM offices where he stayed until after 3 a.m. By Monday, when the cast went on the air with hundreds of listeners gathered at the studio window, Clear Channel had agreed to a 30-day extension. The entire staff of the Kraddick show had 30 days to invent a new program after losing the man who generated 90 percent of their content. “It’s not a flowers, sunshine and puppies type of career path,” Chavez says. “It’s ‘Do or get out.’” Fans packed Victory Plaza to pay their respects for the late Kidd Kraddick at the Tribute to Kidd on August 15, 2013. The tribute was highlighted by performances by Ben Folds and the Jonas Brothers, while Kidd Kraddick Morning Show host “J-Si” Chavez, above, declared that Kidd’s show would continue. (Michael Ainsworth, Staff Photographer) The Victory cheer Nineteen days after Kraddick’s death, Victory Plaza was filled from the steps of American Airlines Center back to Olive Street with people gathered for the Tribute to Kidd. Waiting to go onstage were the remaining co-hosts; “Psycho” Shanon; Kraddick’s daughter, Caroline; Mark Cuban; the Jonas Brothers and Ben Folds. Standing nearby were representatives of Clear Channel. And there was George Laughlin, more than 20 pounds lighter than he had been in New Orleans. SLIDESHOW: Fans pay their respects at the Tribute to Kidd Before the cast went on, Laughlin pulled Chavez aside and gave some very specific instructions. As a brand-new immigrant in the third grade, Chavez had been beaten up by two sixth-graders at his San Diego school because he couldn’t speak English. And he was about to utter some of the most important words he would ever say. Each cast member gave their memories and introduced video clips. Chavez went last. Repeating Laughlin’s words verbatim, he said, “We are going to continue Kidd’s show, no matter what.” The loudest cheer of the afternoon rolled across the plaza. The message was clear that a loyal and energized audience was waiting for the Kidd Kraddick Show 2.0. “That is when negotiations began for a new contract,” Laughlin says. Exactly one month after Chavez spoke those words, Clear Channel signed the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show for another two years. “When Clear Channel renewed with YEA, I think that’s when I stopped sweating,” Chavez says. “The Monday after he died, they hit the ground running and they never looked back,” says Lee Leipsner, executive vice president of promotion at Columbia Records. “They were sad and shared their grief on the air, but they got back on the air.” For years, Leipsner had been connecting his acts such as One Direction and Good Charlotte with the Kraddick show. And it’s a policy he continues today. “A lot of our campaigns were built by bringing our artists to the Kidd Kraddick Show. It’s still very relatable and it’s still very powerful.”

Kellie Rasberry takes a selfie with Bethany Harrison, 15, at the fourth annual Kidd’s Kids benefit golf tournament at Timberlane Country Club in Gretna, La., on July 19, 2014. (David Woo/Staff Photographer)