Radio host Jim White, who co-created Savor Dallas and Restaurant Week, died

Jim White, the passionate co-founder of two Dallas meals occasions, has died.

White battled a sudden onset of most cancers, his spouse Vicki Briley-White informed CultureMap.

White created Savor Dallas, the meals and wine competition that was created in 2004 and ran yearly since 2005. It was bought by The Dallas Morning News in 2014 and operated till 2018.

White additionally co-founded KRLD Restaurant Week, a still-thriving annual occasion recognized at present as DFW Restaurant Week. It raises cash for 2 native charities: the North Texas Food Bank and Lena Pope Home.

Before White obtained concerned in festivals, he was a radio veteran, working as a morning news anchor on KRLD-AM (1080) and producing “The Restaurant Show with Jim White.” He beforehand labored at KEGL-FM, The News reported in 1995.

White’s efforts producing a food-and-wine centered radio present, and later, creating Savor Dallas, have been new for Dallas.

“Every year, legions of foodies and wine lovers trek to places such as Aspen, New Orleans and Banff Springs, Alberta, for big-name, food-and-wine weekends,” The News’ particular contributor Kim Pierce wrote in 2004 as Savor Dallas was created. Briley-White famous that “half of the people there are from Dallas, Texas” — so the couple created a several-day soiree that celebrated the cooks, winemakers and foodies proper right here in our house city.

After all, White had already created a listener base of foodies on the radio.

Today, Dallas boasts a dozen or extra meals festivals with the identical initiative — a fervor that White noticed first.

In its earliest days, Savor Dallas additionally featured feminine wine makers throughout seminars particularly for girls. “Women want to know about wine,” Briley-White mentioned in 2004.

Over the years, the Whites labored with Dallas’ prime cooks, together with Kent Rathbun, Misti Norris, Stephan Pyles, Paula Lambert, Dean Fearing, David Uygur, Tre Wilcox and Tim Byres. The Whites secured meals and wine tastings inside town’s most iconic buildings, together with the Crow Collection of Asian Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Latino Cultural Center, the African American Museum, Centennial Hall and the Dallas Museum of Art.

CultureMap aptly calls White “Dallas’ original foodie.”

Jim Moroney, who knew White in his function as former chairman, president and chief government of The Dallas Morning News, says White’s love for meals and wine was contagious.

“The moment you met Jim, you knew you were in the presence of energy and passion — energy about the event he was running and passion for food and wine,” says Moroney, who is The News’ writer emeritus. “You couldn’t help get caught up in the moment and the fun. He exuded joie de vivre in all that he did.”

We will replace this story when funeral preparations have been made public.

For extra meals news, comply with Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter at @sblaskovich.