Grady Hughes

Jr.

Grady Hughes Jr. — known to nearly everyone as Duke — died at his home in Wichita Falls on Saturday, September 5, 2026. He was 69.

He was born June 19, 1957, in Ardmore, Oklahoma, to Grady Lee Hughes Sr. and Rosie Lilly Mitchell. He got his name before he could walk: his father took the family to a cowboy picture and came home calling the baby "the Duke." It stuck for sixty-nine years.

The family had nothing. In 1958 they were living rent-free on a ranch outside Ardmore when his father pulled the older children out of school and moved everyone to Terral to pick cotton. Duke was still an infant. His mother set his basket at the head of a row, worked the row down and back, checked on him, and moved the basket over one. Four months of that. Later that year they landed in Wichita Falls — first a small house on Knoll Street, then a better one across the street with about an acre of yard that each of the children took a turn mowing as they got old enough.

He married Kim Browning on September 24, 1976, before a justice of the peace in Waurika, Oklahoma. They were nineteen days shy of fifty years together.

Duke spent his career in newspapers as a press foreman — a few years in Corpus Christi when his children were small, and the rest of it back home in Wichita Falls. Hard, physical work with early hours and heavy machinery, and he worked it the way he did everything, which was all the way.

He was quiet. He'd go a long stretch without saying much, and then say something either very important or very funny, and you learned to listen for both. He was also stubborn as the day is long, and his family will tell you so.

He was a man who fixed things. His backyard shop was where you'd find him, and his 1955 Ford was a long-running project and a point of pride. He smoked meats. He collected antiques and records. He played guitar — acoustic and electric, and he was good at it, with several instruments around the house. He golfed with his buddies and was a natural, right up until a back injury took it from him, a loss he never quite got over. He taught his son everything he knows about repairing a house, and he taught it the way he did most things: by handing over the tool and expecting you to figure it out.

He liked the simple version of a good time. Time at the lake with family and friends. A fire going outside. Birds at the feeder. A cold Miller and a fresh cigarette.

He loved his pets, and Xena the bulldog most of all — his warrior princess. She got a handmade collage on the wall, which his own children have noted they never received.

In his later years his Christian faith became central to him.

Ask Duke how he was doing and he'd tell you he'd woken up, read the newspaper, and his name wasn't in the obituaries — so he must be doing pretty good.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Grady Lee Hughes Sr. and Rosie Lilly Mitchell; his brothers Wilbur "Buddy" Hughes and Charlie "Runt" Hughes; and his sister Leona Hancock.

He is survived by his wife of nearly fifty years, Kim Hughes of Wichita Falls; his son Jack Hughes and wife Alice of Garland, and their children Ava, Addy, JW, JR, and Arabella; his daughter Heather Brown and husband Brent Brown of Iowa Park, and their children Morgan and Barrett; his brother Dan Hughes and sister Becky Hughes, both of Wichita Falls; and a host of nieces, nephews, and friends.

A memorial service will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 20, 2026, at Faith Baptist Church, 411 S. Wall Street, Iowa Park, Texas. Family and friends are invited to share memories.