A Legendary Voice Is Silent

One thing I'd like to do with this blog is to re-create the spirit and the history of the time we spent together back in the mid-to-late 1960s.

Certainly one of the legendary figures of that time was newscaster and commentator Paul Harvey, who died a few days ago at the age of 90. Not that Harvey had faded away since we were in school. An ABC News release about his passing noted that during his career had 25 million listeners a week on over 1,0000 radio stations. No wonder he was called: "The Most Listened To Man In The History Of Radio."

If you are a member of the FRHS Class of 1969 you probably think you've been hearing Paul Harvey on the radio all your life. And you would be correct about that, since Harvey began his network radio career in 1951, the year most of us were born. So great was his continuning audience draw he signed a 10-year, $100 milion contract in 2000 just after he 80th birthday.

One of my first memories of Paul Harvey was having to listen to him in the car because the adult behind the wheel (usually either my dad or my uncle) didn't want to listen to the rock & roll station that I preferred to listen to, while taking me to school in the mornings.

But as the years went by, while I didn't always agree with his politics or commentaries, you couldn't help but come to love Harvey's smooth delivery, his distinctive voice and his wonderful ability to paint very vivid pictures with the words he spoke. As a journalist I couldn't help but stand in awe of his verbal and writing abilities.

He didn't use jingles or sound bites. He just told you the story. Most broadcasters would consider it a great career if just one catch-phrase they uttered became legendary. Paul Harvey had several from "Stand-by for news!" to "Page 2" or his legendary close of "Good Day!". Finally, and, perhaps the phrase he will be best remembered for (and which became its own radio program), "And Now You Know The Rest of the Story".

Courtesy of YouTube here's a brief biography of Harvey done by Rita Dixon for a history class at Bellarmine College and one of Harvey's "Rest of the Story" classics (written by his son, but delivered in his impossible-to-forget style....