By Thea Jarvis

One of the nicest things anyone can say to Kaedi Kiely is that she looks just the way she sounds.

To the effervescent, mellow-voiced disc jockey thousands of WKLS/96 Rock listeners know so well, the compliment means there isn’t a wall of plastic separating her natural self from her “on the air” persona.

“People usually say my voice is ‘refreshing,’” 25-year-old Kaedi says somewhat self-consciously. “I’ll walk into places and they recognize my voice. They know who I am.”

Her fans like what they hear. And they like who they see. Kaedi is home-grown, naturally outgoing, and thriving on the recognition that is fast becoming the norm for her.

“She’s Kaedi Kiely on and off the air,” says Dick Meeder, WKLS’ vice-president and general manager.

After just two years at Atlanta’s classic rock radio station, Kaedi is a hot property. Currently the only female in local radio’s “afternoon drive” time slot, the Cathedral parishioner is a faithful friend to her late-day listeners and an instant celebrity to area concert-goers, whom she invariably greets before show time with a friendly, “Hi, I’m Kaedi Kiely from 96 Rock. Thanks for being here!”

“It always surprises me,” she admits. “You say your name and the audience just screams!”

While the roar of the crowd still has the capacity to astonish her, Kaedi remembers that, even as a child, she was drawn to song and dance, music and the performing arts. Reminiscing in the high ceiling living room of her parents’ home just south of Buckhead, she recalls a “very strict” upbringing, with much parental encouragement and broad exposure to a variety of different experiences.

“My parents (Bill and Judy Kiely) really are amazing. I feel like I’m the luckiest person in the world to be in the family I’m in,” she claims. She and her four brothers were all “well-rounded;” school was a priority, as were music and sports.

Moving to Atlanta at age 10, Kaedi attended E. Rivers Elementary, then studied at St. Joseph’s High School until it closed its downtown doors. She graduated from Northside High School of Performing Arts and the following fall entered Emory University. During her senior year at Emory, Kaedi took a communications internship at the Georgia Bulletin for three months, writing and interfacing with local radio and television stations. While at the Bulletin, she met television news personality Monica Kaufman, who offered some sound advice about career choices.

“She said since there were so few women in radio, it was a good place to be,” Kaedi remembers. After graduation from Emory with a bachelor of arts degree in English, she followed Ms. Kaufman’s counsel and began scouting the world of radio broadcasting.

Kaedi’s nose led her to California, where one of her brothers was living. She landed a job “off the street” with KKBZ in Ventura, hired to do traffic reports.

“They were impressed with my voice and promised that as soon as a weekend position opened up, I’d get it,” she explains. In two months, they were as good as their promise and Kaedi had her own show.

“I was scared to death,” she laughs. “They left me alone and I was just hysterical!”

From weekends she moved to a midday show, became the afternoon drive sportscaster and the station’s promotions director. As a result of a large dose of experience in the short span of a year and a half, Kaedi says now she is “really flexible.”

A visit back to Atlanta convinced her she couldn’t bear to leave home again, so she started pounding the city’s pavements, searching the southern market for an opportunity that seemed at once elusive and tantalizingly attractive.

“It was so hard just to get (radio stations) to talk to you,” Kaedi remembers. Since she was a fan of AOR (album oriented rock), her station of choice was 96 Rock. When WKLS program director Alan Sneed hired her in the spring of 1983, she recalls, “he really gave me a break.”

She started with morning newscasts, kibitzing with the a.m. crew between-times. “Win a date with Kaedi Friday Night at Timothy John’s” was a frequent make-believe wake-up contest invented by her early rising co-workers.

“That kind of thing just kind of catapulted it,” she realizes. By fall of 1983, she had moved up to a midday slot and a little over a year ago she was given her own afternoon drive show.

Dick Meeder calls Kaedi a “general manager’s dream. She not only has the professional acumen that any station would like to have on the air,” he says, “but she handles herself extremely well publicly. She has a very friendly approach to the people she meets. They just love her wherever she goes.”

Kaedi’s rising popularity doesn’t surprise him, but he admits “it is a little unusual for a person to arrive on the scene and become full-time on one of the most important ‘day parts’ (afternoon drive time) on a major radio station.”

Her gift for just being herself has brought her success on and off the air. She now emcees all concerts sponsored by 96 Rock. Georgians young and old meet her at concert sites around metro Atlanta, bringing a fresh-faced, open-armed welcome to the hordes of fans waiting to hear their latest music idols. At high schools, colleges, churches, corporate functions and local pubs, she hosts dances and promotes contests that tickle the funnybone and set feet to tapping.

“We do an awful lot of charity work,” Kaedi remarks proudly. “Right now we’re doing ‘The Ugliest Bartender’ contest for multiple sclerosis,” a promotion that brings in smiles as well as much needed funds for research and treatment.

Down at WKLS, located in the busy Century Center complex of I-85, Kaedi is comfortable in baggy jeans, camou high tops, and a bright yellow sweater that is right in tune with her sunny, bubbly disposition. She greets everyone with the same friendly manner she communicates to her listeners, whether buying Diet Cokes in the station’s lunchroom or waving to WKLS’ midday jock, John-boy, in the sound booth.

In the production room an hour before air time, Kaedi is all business, long, dangling earrings dancing as she moves quickly from tape to microphone, dubbing, overlaying, checking material for glitches and blanks. Her off-the-air voice, a visitor learns, is twin sister to the resonant tone with the soft catch that so endears Kaedi to her fans.

At three o’clock, the familiar, “This is Kaedi on 96 Rock,” rings out on Atlanta airwaves and for the next four hours Kaedi makes music happen with a style that people continue to notice.

With characteristic modesty, Kaedi leaves her ego behind and just enjoys what she is doing. For now, she says simply, “I just want to be the best in the afternoon.”