Baton Rouge, LA : Former radio broadcaster Kevin Meeks dies in motorcycle accident on Friday, 18th August, 2016
Kevin Meeks, a well-known former radio broadcaster, died Friday night after the motorcycle he was riding crashed into a vehicle on Jefferson Highway in Baton Rouge.
Meeks, 60, was riding his Harley Davidson east on Jefferson Highway around 9 p.m. Friday when he made a left turn onto Drusilla Lane in front of an oncoming Honda vehicle, said Sgt. Don Coppola Jr., a Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman. That collision then pushed Meeks' motorcycle into a Ford pickup truck that was behind him in the turn lane, Coppola said.
Meeks, of 8208 Sholar Drive, died at the scene, Coppola said. Neither of the other drivers were issued citations, he said.
Meeks worked at WJBO-AM radio from 1996 until he was laid off in 2015. He co-hosted a morning news show with Matt Kennedy for 14 years.
"In our 14 years of working together, we often disagreed, but I loved him like a brother," Kennedy wrote in a Facebook post quoted on the WJBO website.
Meeks was born on a naval base in Key West, Florida, but lived most of his life in Baton Rouge, where he graduated from Tara High School, his son Josh Meeks said.
The elder Meeks spent his entire career in radio, first at a station while he attended Southeastern Louisiana University, then moving to a station in Thibodaux and a string of stations in Baton Rouge.
"If you talk, you can always come up with a new topic," Josh Meeks said of his father's approach to radio.
Kevin Meeks was always calm and took time to collect his thoughts, while his WJBO co-host Kennedy was known for speaking his mind, Josh Meeks said.
"That's what made them such a beautiful team. … They meshed together so well because they were so different," Meeks said.
Meeks, now a producer at WAFB-TV, said radio and television personalities often let their egos get in the way, but his father "was so far from that. He loved to talk. He loved to interact and engage with people and debate."
After he was laid off at WJBO, Meeks spent his time watching baseball and going to the movies with his son. The two also regularly rode motorcycles together.
"He was as much a best friend as he was a dad," Josh Meeks said, recalling that his father never raised his voice and always seemed to be in a good mood.
His calm demeanor and intelligence helped him in his radio career, Meeks said.
"What was on the air, that was him," he said. "That was no persona, it wasn't any kind of act he put on."
"He was the master of trivia, a lover of history and Baton Rouge in general," a post on WJBO's Facebook page says. "Your day was blessed in someway when you started it at the coffee pot with him. Most Radio/TV types know each other regardless of company affiliation and many are great friends no matter which station name they wear. Kevin was that universal friend."
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Former radio broadcaster Kevin Meeks dies in motorcycle accident