Long-time Chicago broadcast journalist, newsman, and author James F. Ruddle died of natural causes at the age of 94 on Aug. 27, 2026, in Rye.
Jim Ruddle was born in Tulsa, Okla., the youngest of three children, to parents George and Lucille [Baxter] Ruddle. He graduated from Tulsa Central High School and the University of Tulsa, then received a master’s degree from the University of New Mexico. He enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1951 for a three-year term, where he served as a radio operator in both the North Atlantic and the Pacific.
He began his broadcasting career in high school, then as a baseball announcer for a Kansas radio station. After leaving the Coast Guard, Jim returned to Tulsa and began working in television news at KOTV-TV. He later worked for a Mexican radio station, and for radio and television in Albuquerque, N.M., while attending graduate school…