R.I.P.: San Antonio Radio Legend Ricci Ware

Ricci Ware

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, according to The News-Express.

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 550 AM , 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.

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.

Ware began his radio career in the mid 1950’s in Baytown, Texas. He married his high school sweetheart, Mimi (The Moot), in 1957, and they moved to Austin, Texas, where Ricci worked for LBJ at KTBC radio and television, reports WOAI-TV4.

While passing through Austin, radio legend Gordon McLendon heard Ricci on the radio, and hired him on the spot to come to KTSA in San Antonio, where Ricci became a household name … and one of the city’s most popular and well-known DJs during the 1960s.

In the early 1970s, Ricci moved to KBUC and formed the legendary team of Ricci and Jud. Their humor and political commentary made radio history. And if being on the air every day was not enough, at this time, Ricci was the owner of Pan American Speedway, and also a weatherman on KSAT television. His plate was full!

Ricci returned to KTSA in 1983, and introduced talk radio to the legendary top-40 station.