What’s wrong? Wichita has lost one of its funniest characters

What’s wrong?

It’s a question comedian Bucky Walters regularly asked and answered to howls of laughter at the annual Gridiron fundraiser put on by the Society of Professional Journalists.

However, there are tears with the answer to what’s wrong Wednesday.

“The only thing that’s wrong right now is he’s not here,” said the beloved Wichitan’s brother, Richard Walters.

Ronald Glenn Walters, 86, died Wednesday morning following numerous health complications.

“Even in his last few months on earth, he was still funny,” said Jessica DeVader, a fellow Gridiron cast member.

Every time she went to visit him and asked how he was doing, Walters answered, “Everything’s cool.”

It was as much his trademark phrase as, “What’s wrong?”

His friend Jessie Gray, owner of Flying Pig Improv, said she scolded Walters for continuing to say everything was cool while he was in a rehabilitation hospital because his care team believed him and kept sending him home.

Recently, Gray taught Walters how to ride a motorized scooter at Dillons. A memorable moment came in June when they stopped at the prescription counter and Gray said Walters went from appearing as an invalid on the scooter one minute to jumping up and animatedly recounting a story, complete with animal noises and hand motions the next, “and then getting back on the scooter like nothing happened.”

‘A wonderful privilege’

Growing up in Wichita, Walters got the nickname “Bucky” when he played baseball in junior high and teammates started calling him after a professional player named Bucky Walters.

Walters was an excellent athlete but, his brother said, “I think he wanted to be a rock ’n’ roll star.”

He was the lead singer for the Premiers, a touring group that opened for acts such as Johnny Cash.

As an Active Age story reported earlier this year, Walters said, “To be at the veritable birth of rock and roll and having the best seat in the house to watch — and be part of it — as it swept across the country, was a wonderful privilege.”

Touring was not for him, though.

“Touring with a band sounds romantic, and you’d think it would be fun,” Walters told the Active Age. “That is, until you are actually doing it.”

Walters had gone to Wichita State University but, as one friend put it, “did not have an exemplary career there.”

Eventually, Richard Walters said, “Our mother talked him into going to beauty school.”

She was a stylist and thought her son could quickly build a clientele, which he did.

The key to Walters wasn’t so much his comedic ability and quick wit, though that was omnipresent, but his charm, Gray said.

For instance, he once was in a local Dancing With the Stars contest and won, not so much due to his dancing, Gray said, “But he was so charming, people rooted for him.”

Immediate laughter

In addition to playing music locally, Walters eventually had a radio show to discuss his beloved Shockers and wrote a column of his opinions— or whatever was going on in his head at the moment — for the Old Town Gazette.

The show was his ticket into performing for Gridiron as a local journalist, however tenuous the connection.

“All he had to do was walk on the stage, and people would start laughing,” said fellow cast member Bonnie Bing Honeyman.

She said Walters used to scare new cast members by seeming to be unprepared.

“Until he had his audience, he just didn’t have it turned on.”

DeVader was new in 2011 and expressed concern to cast member Ted Woodward that Walters didn’t appear ready for the show.

“Ted shrugged and said, ‘It’s OK. It’s Bucky. He’ll pull it together.’

“It was, like, something about him,” DeVader said. “The minute he hit the stage, he just turned on.”

She said it was an honor to be on stage with Walters but also a challenge.

“You never saw the same Gridiron twice. Bucky for sure was going to do something different or say something different every night.”

DeVader said she tried to prepare herself to not break into laughter.

“Every night, I would just go, ‘Keep it together.’ ”

When journalist Suzanne Perez joined the cast in 1991, she said Walters already was a legend, and she and others would “get used to getting shown up by Bucky’s hilariousness.”

She and Bing Honeyman also both noted their resentment at how good Walters looked in a dress.

“God-dang, Bucky,” Perez once lamented, “your legs are better than any of ours.”

Comic relief

There are still spiral notebooks all over Walters’ home with ideas for sketches and songs that he’d regularly jot down, Gray said.

Through the years, Walters participated in a variety of shows, including a sketch show called Comedia, fundraisers and other forms of entertainment.

“He was always comedic relief,” said fellow Wagonmaster Bryan Frye. “He did a lot of things in the community.”

Walters always will be remembered for wearing dresses and impersonating women, particularly former Gov. Joan Finney, who showed up to watch him.

“He looked stunned, and the audience just about died,” Bing Honeyman said.

A more recent skit about the proliferation of carwashes had Walters playing a carwash himself, with felt flaps safety-pinned to his body to simulate washers as he twirled and used a bottle to spray water.

“It was so fun every night watching the audience lose their minds laughing at that,” DeVader said.

“Now every time I’m in a car wash, I think of Bucky,” Perez said.

His special relationship with a blow-up doll named Colette also got Walters attention, especially as he carried her back and forth to rehearsals on the WSU campus.

Perez said his service, which is not yet planned, may be one of the few ever to feature a blow-up doll in attendance.

Walters would sing to Colette in an effort to get her to take her mask off during the pandemic.

Woodward said Gridiron will never be the same without Walters, who was its bedrock.

“Before he even opened his mouth, the audience is laughing. . . . The guy was just gold. You just don’t find that a lot. It’s not something you could teach. It’s just the way he was.”

‘What a life’

Between a couple of Gridiron shows this year, Perez said the cast went to eat dinner at Larkspur, where it seemed everyone who worked in the restaurant stopped by to welcome him.

“Hey, Buck,” she said they’d say. “What’s going on?”

In recent weeks, DeVader said, “He kept saying when I visited him, ‘What a life. What a life.’ ”

Through a lot of tears Wednesday, friends also laughed a lot, too, remembering Walters. DeVader said they’re not the only ones.

“Heaven is laughing its ass off for sure. That’s a guarantee.”

She had a moment to be alone with Walters for a visit Sunday, though he was unresponsive at the time. DeVader said she somehow felt singing him a song would be appropriate.

She said she couldn’t think of any songs except for the closing number from Gridiron, so she sang that, which in hindsight DeVader realized was pretty apropos.

“There you have it. There’s the show. We hope we didn’t hit too low. And if you were slammed, remember please, it was only meant to tease.”

To listen to some of the music by Bucky Walters and the Premiers, check out https://rocky-52.net/chanteursb/bucky&p.htm.

This story was originally published September 10, 2025 at 4:50 PM.