Funeral and inurnment services for Kenneth L. Brasel, 92, former sports writer, sports editor and Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. media relations person, will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 1, at Epiphany Episcopal Church, 9600 South Gessner, Houston, TX. Family, friends, former golf partners and buddies are invited to attend this celebration of his life and to join in a reception-lunch in the church Parish Hall following the service.
Brasel was born April 30, 1926 in Tulsa, OK, the youngest child of Claude Brasel and Violet Brasel. He began his newspaper career as a boy, throwing a paper route, which helped him pay expenses for school supplies, clothes and lunches to help his hard-working mother after his father left the family. He later began “stringing” for the Tulsa World, covering sports in the area. He graduated from Will Rogers High School in 1943 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy as soon as he turned 18. Prior to that enlistment, he learned a lot about life (and a little about fun) working for the U.S. Corps of Engineers in Oklahoma and West Texas.
He ran cross-country track for the Navy team during radio school in Idaho and then was stationed as a Radioman 2nd Class in the Philippines. Although he was a patriotic sailor, loved serving his country and was forever grateful to the G.I. Bill for his college education, his service was mostly playing for the U.S. Navy baseball team in Manilla and elsewhere. He continued playing baseball in semi-pro leagues and was once invited to a tryout for a St. Louis Browns’ farm club. He didn’t make the trip because his mother was ill, and he felt he needed to stay home to take care of her. He retained a love of sports of all kinds (except basketball because, he said, he saw way too many games covering the Missouri Valley Conference in the late 1940s and early 1950s).
After his Navy discharge, he returned to Tulsa and enrolled in Tulsa University to pursue a degree in journalism. Seventeen days later, he quit TU and, with his best friend, Ed Cook, headed to Springfield, MO, where he enrolled at (then) Southwest Missouri State. Ed and his girlfriend, Carolyn, introduced Brasel to Carolyn’s best friend, Harriett Westland, and that was the start of the rest of his life.
Brasel worked full time for the Springfield News-Leader & Press while he attended SMSU, marrying Harriett two weeks after her high school graduation in May 1948 and graduating in August 1950, shortly before becoming Dad to daughter, Julie. In March 1954, Brasel accepted an offer for an employee communications job from Southwestern Bell and moved his small family to St. Louis, MO, to begin his public relations career.
He transferred to Austin, TX, in 1958, and moved into a community/customer relations position. He gave up playing baseball with that move, but he segued into golf, a pastime he pursued until he lost his swing and no longer felt competitive about four years ago. He found it impossible to give up an allegiance to the University of Oklahoma Sooners, which made for some interesting fall Saturdays because Harriett adopted the University of Texas Longhorns as “her team.”
In August 1960, Brasel was transferred to Houston to take on a media relations position that led him to become the face and voice of “Ma Bell” for more than 30 years. On the advice of his boss, he joined The Press Club of Houston and forged enduring friendships with reporters, editors, photographers, advertising people and fellow public relations professionals who also called the Rice Hotel-based club “home.” He helped relocate the club to 2100 Main in the mid 1970s and sadly helped oversee its demise as a “watering hole” a few years later.
He served the club in various capacities, including two terms as president and multiple years as chair/producer of the annual Press Club of Houston Gridiron Show, which spoofed politicians, celebrities, socialites and sports stars to raise money for journalism scholarships. His talented wife joined him in supporting the show, and shelves at home were crowded with trophies for acting, singing (her, not him) and scriptwriting honors.
More importantly, though, the Brasels became part of a fraternity of media, advertising and public relations people who raised their children together, partied together and celebrated births, baptisms, marriages and deaths together. Following Harriett’s death Nov. 1, 1988, that circle has continued to shrink and he was among only a few left to tell the stories.
He became one of the members of the “Spokespersons Anonymous” group because of his frequent encounters with ABC-13’s famed consumer crusader, the late Marvin Zindler. As SWBT’s primary spokesman, Brasel was one of Zindler’s “go-to” interviewees and he never once lost his composure on camera. The two were somewhat friendly off-camera, occasionally playing golf together. Brasel’s media relations philosophy was to respond to media no matter when they called or what they called about, and to get answers they needed as fast as possible. It made him both popular and respected among Houston’s media for many years. It also served as a model for his daughter, who followed him into journalism and then public relations.
Brasel retired from Southwestern Bell in 1991 as the “Baby Bell” was being spun off from AT&T. His retirement goal was to play as many of the 1,000 top-rated golf courses in the U.S. and Canada as he could. He traveled frequently, often playing 36 holes a day, racking up lots of memories of both remarkable rounds and those he wished he could forget. Before his 13 handicap spiked, he had left his mark (and some divots) on 336 of those courses, and his collection of golf pencils from each one was a conversation piece. He also made a point to sample fine dining, especially crab cakes, wherever he traveled.
He was a member of the Quail Valley Men’s Golf Association, the Silver Swingers, Golden Oldies, the Travel Group and several other golf groups that played the Quail Valley Golf Courses in Missouri City. He was also a member of the Public Relations Society of America Houston Chapter in the 1960s, serving on the board. Brasel was also a devout Episcopalian, most recently a member of Epiphany Episcopal Church in southwest Houston.
Brasel will be remembered as a fiercely loyal Houston Oilers fan, transferring his allegiance to Tennessee when Bud Adams moved the team there. Once the stadium in Nashville was completed, Brasel bought Titan season tickets, flying over for home games and sometimes traveling to away games for many years. When he moved to Landon Ridge in Sugar Land from the Quail Valley home he’d lived in for 46 years, his signed hats, helmets, balls and Super Bowl ticket stubs (from 2001) came with him, along with most of his collection of Tennessee Titan shirts, sweaters and socks. Ray Childress and Bruce Matthews were his favorite players of all time.
After what he called 92 “great” years, he had a few bad days before succumbing to cancer Friday, Jan. 18. As his life clocked ticked down, his good humor and great attitude rarely waivered. He said “have fun – but don’t get caught” almost until he took his last breath.
Brasel was preceded in death by his father, his mother, his wife, his older sister Erma Foreman, and his nephews Ronald J. Brasel and David Foreman, among other relatives and a host of friends. He is survived by his daughter, Julie B. Fix (Chuck), his granddaughter Jennifer Hicks McDowell (Steve), his great-grandchildren Scarlett and Holden, his older brother Robert J. Brasel of Tulsa, OK, his nephew Alan Brasel (Dora), his niece Diana Courson (J), and numerous great and great-great nieces and nephews.
In lieu of other remembrances, the family respectfully requests memorials be made to The Brasel Family Endowment, University of Houston, Office of Advancement, P.O. Box 867, Houston, TX 77001-0867. The family intends the endowment to fund scholarships for Valenti School of Communication journalism and public relations students, given the intense interest of Ken, Harriett and Julie in helping college students succeed.
SHARE OBITUARY
v.1.8.18