Beech Tree News Network

Paul Harvey (September 4, 1918-February 28, 2009) was an American broadcaster for ABC News Radio.  He broadcasted News and Comment on mornings and middays on weekends and at noon on Saturdays.  He also did his famous Rest of the Story segments.  From 1951-2008, his programs reached as many as 24 million people per week.  Paul Harvey News was carried on 1.200 radio stations, on 400 American Forces Network stations, and in 300 newspapers.

Harvey was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was the son of a policeman who was killed by robbers in 1921.  He made radio receivers as a young boy and attended Tulsa Central High School, where he was two years ahead of future actor Tony Randall.  Teacher Isabelle Roman was impressed by his voice.  On her recommendation, he started working at KVOO in Tulsa in 1933 helping to clean up when he was 14.  He eventually was allowed to fill in on the air by reading commercials and the news.  

He continued working at KVOO while he attended the University of Tulsa, first as an announcer and later as program director.  He spent three years as station manager for KFBI AM (later KFDI), a Wichita, Kansas radio station that once had studios in Salina, Kansas.  From there, he moved to a newscasting job at KOMA in Oklahoma City, then to KXOK in St. Louis in 1938 where he was director of special events and a roving reporter.

Harvey then moved to Hawaii to cover the U.S. Navy as it concentrated its fleet in the Pacific after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He eventually enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces but only served from December ’43 until March ’44 resulting from a medical discharge.  He then moved to Chicago where, in June 1944, he began broadcasting from the ABC affiliate WENR.

In 1945, he began hosting the post-war employment program Jobs For G.I. Joe on WENR, Harvey added the tagline “the rest of the story” as a tagline to in-depth feature stories in 1946.  One of Harvey’s regular topics was lax security, particularly at Argonne National Laboratory, a nuclear research facility 20 miles southwest of Chicago.  To demonstrate his concern, just after midnight on February 6, 1951, he entered the grounds by scaling a fence and was quickly apprehended by security guards.  In 2010, the Washington Post, having obtained 1400 pages of the FBI file on Harvey, described it as “an act of participatory journalism”.  Harvey’s escapade prompted the U.S. attorney for Illinois to empanel a grand jury to consider an espionage indictment.  Harvey went on the air to suggest he was being set up.  The grand jury declined to indict Harvey.

On April 1, 1951, the ABC Radio Network debuted Paul Harvey News and Comment with a weekday noon timeslot.  His network television debut came on November 16, 1952, when he began a 15-minute newscast on ABC.  The program originated at WENR-TV in Chicago.

Later, Harvey began to host a separate program, The Rest of The Story, in which he provided backstories behind famous people and events.  I always enjoyed listening to his stories.  The show premiered three years before I did, May 10, 1976 on ABC Radio.  The series quickly grew to six broadcasts a week and continued until his death in 2009.  It was written and produced by his son, Peak Harvey, Jr, from its outset and for its 33-year duration.  Harvey and his radio network stated that the stories in that series, although entertaining, were completely true.  That was contested by some critics, including urban legend expert Jan Harold Brunvand.  

In November 2000, Harvey signed a 10-year, $100 million contract with ABC Radio Networks.  A few months later, after damaging his vocal cords, he went off the air but returned in August 2001.  His success with sponsors stemmed from the seamlessness with which he segued from his monologue into reading commercial messages.  He explained his relationship with them: “I am fiercely loyal to those willing to put their money where their mouth is”.

Fill-in hosts included former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson, Paul Harvey Jr, Paul W. Smith, Gil Gross, Ron Chapman, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Mort Crim, Scott Shannon, Joe Holstead and Tony Snow.  Three weeks after Harvey’s death, the News and Comment franchise was cancelled.  

Harvey’s on-air persona was influenced by sportscaster Bill Stern and columnist Walter Winchell.  In the ‘40’s, Stern’s The Colgate Sports Reel and newsreel programs used many of the techniques later used by Harvey.  Harvey was also known for his catchphrase he used at the beginning of his program such as “hello Americans, this is Paul Harvey.  Stand by for NEWS”

Famous friends included FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and Reverand Billy Graham.  Harvey was elected to the National Association of Broadcasters, National Radio Hall of Fame and Oklahoma Hall of Fame. He appeared on the Gallop Poll list of America’s most admired men.  He received 11 Freedom Foundation Awards as well as the Horatio Alger Award.  Harvey was inducted into the DeMolay Hall of Fame, a Masonic youth organization, on June 25, 1993.  

He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 by President George W. Bush.  On May 18, 2007, he received an honorary degree from Washington University in St. Louis. In 1992, he received the Paul White Award of the Radio Television Digital News Association.  He was inducted as a Laureate of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the state’s highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 1987 in communication. (www.wikipedia.org , www.google.com) 

Here is the link to my vlog this week: https://youtu.be/xvmwpqPwwOA?si=nl-f1O3B99V18XLe