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Monday, March 2, 2009

RIP Paul Harvey, Many Thousand Good Day's


Paul Harvey passed away yesterday at age 90, after a huge career in broadcasting for over 60 years. The sole source of my news outside of the Clinton Journal and Bloomington Pantagraph, Paul had a resounding voice and a unique take on events that made him an irresistible listen.

Looking around my house, pretty much everything I have purchased in the last 20 years was either recommended by Paul Harvey, or it was not worth keeping. Neutrogena, Bose Acoustic Wave Radio, Banker's Life, Archer Daniels, all of these were woven in to Paul Harvey's broadcasts.
I even have Paul Harvey's book, The Rest of the Story here, which has some fantastic (but true!) tales that never ceased to light up an afternoon.

Paul Harvey Aurandt was born September 4, 1918, to Harry Harrison and Anna Dagmar (Christensen) Aurandt in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His father, a police officer, was killed when Harvey was three.

Harvey’s career was launched in 1933 when a speech teacher at Tulsa’s Central High School recognized his potential. She escorted the 14-year-old to local station KVOO-AM and told the station manager “This boy needs to be in radio,” the Tulsa World recounted in a 1997 article.

Harvey worked as an announcer, then as program director at KVOO-AM, according to the biography on his Web site.

He spent three years as a station manager in Salina, Kansas, followed by a stint as a newscaster in Oklahoma City. He then landed at WXOK-AM in St. Louis, working as a reporter and director of special events. In 1939, he met his future wife at the station.

‘Angel’s’ Advice

After marriage, Harvey worked as a reporter in Hawaii and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps after Pearl Harbor. Discharged in 1944, he moved to Chicago at his wife’s urging.

“Since the first day of our marriage, we’ve worked side by side,” Harvey told the Chicago Tribune in 2002. Indeed, in 1997 his wife was the first producer inducted in the Hall of Fame of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.


The man was truly awe inspiring, who along with his wife Angel, produced the greatest radio shows in U.S. history. RIP Paul Harvey

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank goodness we had Paul: the Journal and P'graph would have left us isolated back in the day.

What about Problems and Solutions?

BEP

Anonymous said...

Problems and solutions would be more interesting than this site as of late.

IRBW

Anonymous said...

Hahaha. So true, so true.

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