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Posted by: thepinetree on 03/02/2009 02:28 PM Updated by: Kim_Hamilton on 03/02/2009 03:38 PM
Expires: 01/01/2014 12:00 AM
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Passing of a Legend Paul Harvey September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009 ~By John Hamilton

Denair, CA...Paul Harvey was a part of the daily routine of my life on the farm I grew up on. My mom usually had Paul Harvey's daily broadcasts on in the kitchen when I was getting ready for school. I grew up with his folksy wisdom and optimistic view of the ole USA and it's citizens. People such as Paul Harvey and my father (Both Oklahoma Boys) who was two years older than Mr. Harvey, were upbeat and positive about our lives and futures. They were upbeat in their world view even though they were young men in the depression era and saw the ravages of World War Two. I have a special affection for citizens of that great generation who just instinctively knew that any problem could be solved with hard work and determination...


Paul Harvey from Wikipedia


As a nation we could use a bit more of their spine in the current economic climate.

Some people see those who portray the world a place where the glass as always half full with more on the way as naive and unrealistic. It is that brand of deliberate, willful and unrelenting positive outlook on life that keeps charging on in spite and in some ways because of life's setbacks that has made our country the place where anything is possible.

Let us hope that the spirit of those that have gone before us can help us prove that the best times for America are ahead of us. Thanks Paul Harvey for all those years you brought a consistent positive voice into my life and millions of lives each day.

In some small way that is what we hope to do with ThePineTree.net We know that life is hard and bleak for may who stop by every day. There are hundreds of people who are morning the loss of loved ones and friends in Calaveras County right now. We also hope that the best for all of us is down the road ahead. The clouds will part and spring is on it's way.

Thanks again to Mr. Harvey for the long and incredibly life you lived that was a great example for many, many people...

On Mr Harvey's life from Wikipeida...

"Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009[1]), better known as Paul Harvey, was an American radio broadcaster for the ABC Radio Networks. He broadcast News and Comment on weekday mornings and mid-days, and at noon on Saturdays, as well as his famous The Rest of the Story segments. His listening audience was estimated at 22 million people a week. Harvey liked to say he was raised in radio newsrooms.[2]

The most noticeable features of Harvey's idiosyncratic delivery were his dramatic pauses, quirky intonations and his folksiness. A large part of his success stemmed from the seamlessness with which he segued from his monologue into reading commercial messages. He explained his enthusiastic support of his sponsors as such: "I am fiercely loyal to those willing to put their money where my mouth is."

Career

As a young boy Harvey made radio receivers and in 1933, at a high school teacher’s suggestion, he started working at KVOO in Tulsa. His first job was to help clean up, and eventually he was allowed to fill in on the air, reading commercials and news.

Later, while attending the University of Tulsa, he continued working at KVOO as an announcer, and later as a program director. Harvey spent three years as a station manager for a local station in Salina, Kansas. From there, he moved to a newscasting job at KOMA in Oklahoma City, then moved on to KXOK, in St. Louis, where he was Director of Special Events and also worked as a roving reporter.

In 1940, Harvey moved to Hawaii to cover the United States Navy as it concentrated its fleet in the Pacific. He was returning to the mainland from assignment in Hawaii when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Harvey served briefly as an enlisted man in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II from December 1943 until March 1944. His critics claim he was given a psychiatric discharge for deliberately wounding himself in the heel. He angrily denies the accusation, but is vague about certain details: "There was a little training accident...a minor cut on the obstacle course...I don't recall seeing anyone I knew who was a psychiatrist...I cannot tell you the exact wording on my discharge." [1]


After leaving military service, Harvey moved to Chicago, where in June 1944, he began broadcasting from the ABC affiliate WENR. He quickly became the most popular newscaster in Chicago. In 1945, he began hosting the postwar employment program Jobs for G.I. Joe on WENR. Harvey added The Rest of the Story as a tagline to in-depth feature stories in 1946. The spots became their own series in 1976. On April 1, 1951 the ABC Radio Network debuted Paul Harvey News and Comment "Commentary and analysis of Paul Harvey each weekday at 12 Noon". Paul Harvey was also heard originally on Sundays; the first Sunday program was Harvey's introduction. Later, the Sunday program would move to Saturdays. The program has continued ever since.

From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, there was a televised, five-minute editorial by Paul Harvey that local stations could insert into their local news programs, or show separately. On May 10, 1976, ABC Radio Networks premiered The Rest of the Story as a separate series which provided endless surprises as Harvey dug into stories behind the stories of famous events and people. Harvey's son, a concert pianist, created and produced the series. He remains the show's only writer.

In late 2000, Harvey signed a 10-year, $100 million contract with ABC Radio Networks. A few months later, he was off the air after damaging his vocal cords. He returned in late August 2001.

Harvey's News and Commentary is streamed on the World Wide Web twice a day. Paul Harvey News has been called the "largest one-man network in the world," as it is carried on 1,200 radio stations, 400 Armed Forces Network stations around the world and 300 newspapers. His broadcasts and newspaper columns have been reprinted in the Congressional Record more than those of any other commentator.

Former Senator Fred Thompson, known for his work on NBC's Law and Order, substituted for Harvey regularly from 2006 to 2007, prior to his unsuccessful run for President. Thompson left the network to run and did not return, instead joining Westwood One in January 2009. Other substitutes for Harvey have included his son Paul Harvey Jr.,[3] Doug Limerick,[4] Paul W. Smith,[5] Gil Gross,[6] Ron Chapman,[7] Mitt Romney,[8] Mike Huckabee[9] Scott Shannon, and Tony Snow. After Huckabee's sub-hosting, ABC offered him a spin-off program, The Huckabee Report, which launched in early 2009.

Harvey did not host the show full-time after April 2008 when he came down with pneumonia. Shortly after his recovery his wife died on May 3, causing him to prolong his time away from broadcasting. Prior to his death, he voiced commercials, new episodes of The Rest of the Story and "News & Comment" during middays a few times a week, with his son Paul Jr. handling mornings.

Harvey's on-air persona mirrored that of sportscaster Bill Stern. During the 1940s, the famed Stern's The Colgate Sports Reel and newsreel programs used many of the techniques later used by Harvey, including the style of delivery and the use of phrases such as Reel Two and Reel Three to denote segments of the broadcast - much like Harvey's Page Two and Page Three. The discovery of many of Stern's old programs on transcription discs have led many to believe that much of Harvey's broadcasting style is based on Stern's work, including most notably the Rest of the Story feature, which is a direct parallel to a technique used weekly by Stern. Stern introduced his version of the feature with a caveat that the stories might not be true; Harvey, however, has asserted that his tales have been authenticated. However, at least one urban legend has been circulated with Harvey as the purported source,[10] and Jan Brunvand, an expert on urban legends, wrote that Harvey "doesn't distinguish folklore from fact" and epitomizes the old saying "The truth never stands in the way of a good story."[11]

Harvey was also known for catch phrases that he uses at the beginning of his programs, like "Hello Americans, I'm Paul Harvey. You know what the news is, in a minute, you're going to hear ... the rest of the story," and, "Paul Harvey News and Commentary, and this is ... (day of the week)," and at the end: "Paul Harvey ... Good day." A story might be "This day's news of most lasting significance." At the end of a report about someone who had done something ridiculous or offensive, Harvey would say "He would want us to mention his name," followed by silence, then would start the next item. The last item of a broadcast, which was often a funny story, would usually be preceded by "For what it's worth."

In addition to the aforementioned inquiry into whether Paul Harvey's "Rest of the Story" tales are true, Paul Harvey's trademark ability to seamlessly migrate from content to commercial has brought scrutiny. In that context, Salon magazine called him the "finest huckster ever to roam the airwaves."[12]

Awards

He was named Salesman of the Year, Commentator of the Year, Person of the Year, Father of the Year, and American of the Year. He was elected to the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Hall of Fame and Oklahoma Hall of Fame and appeared on the Gallup poll list of America's most admired men. In addition he received 11 Freedom Foundation Awards as well as the Horatio Alger Award. Paul Harvey was named to the DeMolay Hall of Fame, a Masonic institution, on June 25, 1993.

In 2005, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' most prestigious civilian award, by President George W. Bush.[13]

On May 18, 2007 he received an honorary degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

Family

Paul Harvey was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Harry Harrison Aurandt (1873-1921) and Anna Dagmar (nee Christensen) Aurandt (1883–1960). His father was born in Martinsburg, Pennsylvania; his mother was a native of Denmark. He had one sibling, an older sister Frances Harrietta (nee Aurandt) Price (1908–1988).

In 1921, when Harvey was three years old, his father was murdered. He and a friend—a Tulsa police detective—were rabbit hunting while off-duty when approached by four armed men who attempted to rob them. Aurandt was shot and died two days later of his wounds. The four robbers were identified by the surviving detective, and arrested the day after Aurandt died. A lynch mob of 1,500 people formed at the jail, but all four were smuggled out, tried, convicted, and received life terms.[14]

In 1940,[15] Harvey married Lynne Harvey (née Cooper) of St. Louis. Lynne Harvey was a member of Phi Beta Kappa at Washington University in St. Louis[16] and was a former schoolteacher.[citation needed] Harvey himself was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha at Culver-Stockton College in Missouri. They met when Harvey was working at KXOK and Cooper came to the station for a school news program. Harvey invited her to dinner, proposed to her after a few minutes of conversation and from then on called her "Angel," even on his radio show. A year later she said yes. The couple moved to Chicago in 1945.[16]

On May 17, 2007, Harvey told his radio audience that Angel had contracted leukemia. Her death, at the age of 92, was announced by ABC radio on May 3, 2008.[17] When she died at their River Forest home, the Chicago Sun-Times described her as, "More than his astute business partner and producer, she also was a pioneer for women in radio and an influential figure in her own right for decades."[18] According to the founder of the Museum of Broadcast Communications, Bruce DuMont, "She was to Paul Harvey what Colonel Parker was to Elvis Presley. She really put him on track to have the phenomenal career that his career has been."[16]

Lynne Harvey was the first producer ever inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame, and had developed some of her husband's best-known features, such as "The Rest of the Story."[15] While working on her husband's radio show, she established 10 p.m. as the hour in which news is broadcast. She was the first woman to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago chapter of American Women in Radio and Television.[16] She worked in television also, and created a television show called Dilemma which is acknowledged as the prototype of the modern talk show genre. While working at CBS, she was among the first women to produce an entire newscast.[16] In later years, she was best known as a philanthropist.

They had one son, Paul Aurandt, Jr., who goes by the name Paul Harvey, Jr. He assisted his father at News and Comment and The Rest of the Story. Paul, Jr., whose voice announces the bumpers into and out of each News and Comment episode, filled in for his father during broadcasts and has been broadcasting the morning editions ever since the passing of his mother.

Death

Harvey died on February 28, 2009, at the age of 90 after being taken to a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. He died while surrounded by family and friends. His son, Paul Harvey Jr., said "millions have lost a friend" in response to his father's death. The cause was not immediately known.

Former President George W. Bush issued a statement on Harvey's death: "Laura and I are saddened by the death of Paul Harvey. Paul was a friendly and familiar voice in the lives of millions of Americans. His commentary entertained, enlightened, and informed. Laura and I are pleased to have known this fine man, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family."


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