As a teenager, Sharon Bradford fell in love with architecture. She’d draw designs and build models and pore over plans for hours, imagining how the lines would come to life.
“To me, when I’d look at [architectural plans], it’s just squares,” said David Bradford, her brother. “And she’d look at it and she could see that this is the pantry, and this is the bedroom, and this is where the water heater’s going to go. She could see all of that, the way it would be when it was built up, once we put up the walls.”
After she graduated high school, she moved from Dallas to Austin to study the field at the University of Texas. Although she didn’t finish the degree, she remained passionate about architecture, saving up so she could tour the great buildings of Paris. And later in life, returning to model building, crafting intricately detailed replicas of rooms she knew well: Her mother’s bedroom, her own, painstakingly reproducing the spaces down to the family photo that sat on her desk.
In many important ways, Bradford navigated life and work with an architect’s approach: Creative but precise, immersed in details but keeping a focus on outcomes. She’d ask questions about proposed policies or plans to find ways they could make life even better when deployed in the real world.
“She looks at the big picture, she can see all sides, and then see the inner workings” David Bradford said.
Bradford, the volunteer coordinator and a champion of equity and inclusion at KERA, died Oct. 2 from cancer. She was 52.
Friends, family and colleagues described Bradford as empathetic, humane, endlessly curious and morally centered. She was a reliable confidant for friends and family, a prolific conversationalist, a creative problem-solver. She was the first point of contact for dozens of volunteers who help make KERA events successful each year.
‘Grounding wire’
Nico Leone remembered Bradford for making him feel at home when he arrived at KERA in 2020, and celebrated her “willingness to ask hard questions and have conversations — and help other people have conversations — that we need to have. But her way of doing that was welcoming and really brought people in and invited them to be part of that conversation.”
Bradford was raised in a close-knit and outgoing family in Oak Cliff. Her parents, Marvin and Charleszetta Bradford, both worked for the military contractor E-Systems building computers. She was the middle child, with two older sisters and two younger brothers.
They were city kids, David Bradford said, thrilled by family trips to the beach at South Padre Island, always busy with sports and school activities, and active in their community.
“We [siblings] did everything together. When Sharon went off to college, that was the furthest that we’d ever been from each other,” David Bradford said. “And she’d call every day.”
Bradford was the center of the family, the one who everyone confided in and a “constant encouragement,” David Bradford said. As the siblings grew older, Bradford remained the “glue” that kept the family together, embracing her role as chief planner of family gatherings, and always available to raise spirits and help navigate life’s challenges.
David Bradford, an Army veteran, said Bradford helped him settle back into civilian life after a tough two-year deployment to Iraq in 2006.
“She was my grounding wire to keep me sane and to keep me from being a statistic and to keep me being there for my family and for my kids. I really would have lost my mind if it had not been for Sharon — just the words of encouragement and being there checking on me and making sure I had everything I need, [asking] did you eat, did you take your medicine, did you get your doctor’s appointment,” David Bradford said.
Bradford doted on her many nieces and nephews, and the growing ranks grand-nieces and grand-nephews, David Bradford said, even showing up for kids’ games and other events as her illness sapped her energy.
“She didn’t have any kids but you would swear up and down that those were her kids. She treats all of them like hers, and it is a wonderful thing,” David Bradford said.
After returning to Dallas from Austin, Bradford worked at a handful of nonprofits, built circuit boards at Texas Instruments, and eventually joined KERA, first as a volunteer and then a staff member coordinating volunteers.
“You know how kids on the first day of school are excited and nervous and just ready to go? That’s how she was going to work every day. It’s crazy because after seven years, that’s still how she felt every day.”
Working with volunteers
Since 2016, Bradford organized volunteers for KERA to answer phones during membership drives, staff tables at festivals and concerts, stuff envelopes for mail campaigns, and do educational activities with kids – even asking them to dress up as PBS Kids characters.
In this work, she was committed, considered, and creative. When the COVID-19 pandemic made in-person gatherings a hazard, Bradford planned video calls so regular volunteers could stay connected to the station and to each other.
Valerie Howell met Bradford as a volunteer at KERA, and they formed a deep friendship, bonding over books they loved, the British mystery television shows they watched.
“Everything she did was to encourage people and to lift people up and to bring people together and to include them and make sure that everybody felt they were part of something, that they had something to contribute,” Howell said.
Bradford relished working with volunteers because it gave her a chance to meet interesting people, Howell said. During television pledge drives, Howell recalls watching Bradford. The lights and cameras trained on television stage, where volunteers sat behind the presenters, lined up to answer phone calls.
“And outside of the lights and back in the shadows is Sharon, and nobody [watching at home] sees Sharon, nobody hears Sharon, but Sharon is watching every little thing, never missing anything, paying attention to what's going on here and what's needed over there,” Howell said. “She was always looking out for everybody else.”
Pushing for change
In 2020, Bradford helped lead a working group charged with recommending changes in policy and practice to make KERA a more inclusive and equitable workplace, better able to attract and support a diverse staff.
Later, she became the inaugural chair of a newly formed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Council. Though the role came with no official power, Bradford used the platform to continue helping to drive change and ensure the concerns of rank-and-file staffers didn’t get missed in the process.
Nilufer Arsala, who served on the council that first year, said Bradford encouraged her to act boldly in asking questions, even when it meant raising questions about accountability with people in more powerful positions at the station.
“I remember one time I had to email [questions to a KERA executive] and I was so nervous. And she was just like, ‘Why? This is what we're here for. This is what we're doing,’” Arsala said. “That is something I'm going to take with me.”
Outside of her formal work on DEI issues at the station, Bradford often found informal ways to support and lift up others. Nora Stimpson, part of the team that runs radio and television membership drives, said Bradford encouraged her to apply to the station three years ago, and helped her chart her path at KERA.
“I'm so grateful and blessed that Sharon gave [me] a chance. Especially for women of color, she always looked out for inclusivity and protection, covering over me and others,” Stimpson said. “She is a blessing that will be truly missed.”
Friends and colleagues gathered at KERA last week to remember Bradford’s self-effacing generosity, infectious curiosity, her detail-oriented work ethic, and her willingness to raise sometimes-difficult questions.
“She challenged all of us and she was always open and curious and wanting to know more. None of her questions or poking was ever from a malicious place, it was always from a place of understanding and learning, and, honestly, excitement,” said Tina Lin, KERA chief of staff. “Sharon was the one to be brave enough to raise a point to get it in front of the people who could maybe do something about it.”
‘Unconditional love’
Bradford’s brother wasn’t surprised she pushed for change at work. She showed love by helping make things better for the people in her life.
“The main thing that I think of when I think of Sharon is unconditional love, because she gave until it hurt and she continued,” he said.
Gifts were another way she showed her love, David Bradford said. While adding that she was an expert gift giver. If she couldn’t buy the perfect item, she’d make it.
Sal Cervantes, a close friend and KERA’s donor data manager, saw that first hand.
“She loved to sew, and I gave her my mother’s sewing machine and she made me a bag to carry my tablet in when I went on my cruise,” Cervantes recalled. “She said that she sewed it with my mother’s sewing machine and I thought that was the sweetest thing that any one has ever done for me.”
She was also a prolific conversationalist.
“We used to talk on the phone for hours, sometimes eight, nine or ten hours – which sounds crazy but we talked about everything, from our parents, family, life, politics, work,” Cervantes said. “She told me her longest phone call…lasted 13 hours.”
“I always felt completely at ease with her." Howell said. We didn’t agree on everything, but I never felt like I had to edit myself when I was with her."
She could also be a perfectionist, Howell said, and would have to remind herself to not overthink the task at hand.
Bradford approached her cancer like she approached other challenges: She focused on the details of her treatment and refused to give into despair or bitterness. She didn’t share the details with many at work, reluctant to draw pity or burden people with the knowledge, her brother said.
“Nothing deterred her. Even when she got the diagnosis, it was ‘Okay, let me take a deep breath, what do we need to do?’” he said. “And then she’d take that first step, then the next step, and the next thing you know, she’s rolling.”
The cancer diagnosis came just a week before she was set to travel to Paris. It was a life-long dream to visit the city and explore its art, culture and architecture.
Although the diagnosis must have been in the back of her mind, David Bradford said his sister put it to the side, and basked in the beauty of the city, sending texts and pictures of her meticulously planned tour.
“She was like a kid in a candy store,” David Bradford recalls. “Everything was brand new and it was colorful and it was bright and she enjoyed it immensely.”
A walk-through visitation and a celebration of life will be held at Evergreen Memorial Funeral Home at 6449 University Hills Blvd. in Dallas. Please click herefor more information.
The celebration of life will also be streamed online here.
Got a tip? Christopher Connelly is KERA's One Crisis Away Reporter, exploring life on the financial edge. Email Christopher at cconnelly@kera.org.You can follow Christopher on Twitter @hithisischris.
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