Don Kennedy

Donald J. Kennedy (March 2, 1930 – June 29, 2023) was an American performer, broadcaster, and voice talent whose career spanned stage, radio, and television across more than six decades. Born in 1930, he died in Atlanta, Georgia on June 29, 2023, at the age of 93, following complications from a stroke he had suffered in 2015 that led to dementia, as reported by his daughter Rebecca Maple.

Kennedy's professional life began in the late 1940s, when he secured a radio announcer position at WPIC, a Pennsylvania radio station. His early career also included two Broadway appearances: Great to Be Alive! and Magnolia Alley, both staged during the 1949–1950 season. By the mid-1950s, he had become a contributor to NBC Radio Network's weekend program Monitor, where he developed original features, among them a segment centered on a local figure known as the Goat Man.

Kennedy became most widely recognized in the Atlanta market through his role as Officer Don, the host of The Popeye Club, a children's television program that aired on WSB-TV Channel 2 from 1956 to 1970. During that same period, he founded 96.1 WKLS, an Atlanta radio station now known as WRDG, serving as its president and general manager; the call letters incorporated the initial of his surname. By 1974, Kennedy had become a part-owner of Briarcliff Communications, which acquired the broadcast license for WATL-TV Channel 36, a station that had been off the air since 1971. On July 5, 1976, he restored Channel 36 to full-time operation from studios at 1800 Peachtree Road NE in midtown Atlanta, where he was frequently recognized by longtime Atlanta residents as the iconic Officer Don.

Kennedy's voice work extended into animation, where he played Tansut in Space Ghost Coast to Coast and contributed multiple characters to both The Brak Show and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He also provided a newly recorded version of the classic Superman radio show's introductory narration for a kiddie ride based on Superman: The Animated Series, manufactured by British company Jolly Roger.

In 1986, Kennedy launched Big Band Jump, an internationally syndicated radio program dedicated to music from the Big Band era. He later added a second syndicated program, the Don Kennedy Show, which featured pop vocals and instrumentals from the 1940s through the 1970s alongside contemporary recordings from the Great American Songbook. Both programs concluded with their final broadcasts on the weekend of September 28–29, 2013, when Kennedy announced his retirement from radio.

Among the honors Kennedy received were two Emmy Awards, a Silver Circle Award, and inductions into both the Pioneer Broadcasters and Georgia Broadcasters Halls of Fame. He was also granted honorary membership in the Di Gamma Kappa Broadcast Fraternity at the University of Georgia. Beyond his professional work, Kennedy served as president of the Georgia Chapter of Muscular Dystrophy, treasurer of the Atlanta Humane Society, and board member of the Atlanta chapter of the American Cancer Society, and he volunteered as a reader for the Georgia Radio Reading Service for the Blind.