Table of Contents
To Julie, whose love and beauty
light up our home.
She has turned one good day after another
into many wonderful years of life together.
Larry King:Who is Paul Harvey? Is he a newsman? Is he a personality? Is he a raconteur? Is he a storyteller? Is he a pundit? Is he a commercial? Is he a salesman?
Paul Harvey:Hes all of those things, and kind of a professional parade-watcher, who just cant wait to get up every morning
Larry King:And why does he like so much telling us?
Paul Harvey:Probably, hes something of an exhibitionist. But, also, when we pray for guidance, and doors continue to open instead of close, a person comes to think of his job as an obligation, to enlighten and inform.
Larry King:So youre all of the above.
Paul Harvey:Probably some of each.
Larry King Live, CNN, January 30, 2003
Foreword
As a boy in a little town in Arkansas, if you had told me I would someday substitute for THE Paul Harvey on Paul Harvey News and Comment, I wouldnt have believed you. If youd then said Id write the introduction for the first biography ever written of Paul Harveys life, I wouldve thought you were really pushing the edges of truth. I grew up listening to Paul Harveyand never quit. When Paul Harvey came on, my fireman father would say, Yall be quiet. I want to hear Paul Harvey. Gee, he never told everyone in the room to be quiet so they could hear me! Tuning into Harveys show became a lifelong ritual. As a fledgling disc-jockey and radio announcer at age fourteen, I dreamed about meeting this gentle giant of the airwaves. Beyond the story of a life well-lived, Good Day! captures the essence of this late radio pioneer. Mr. Harvey embodied our common American ideals. He worked hard to achieve his dreams and encouraged us to do the same. He was not just the VOICE of Americahe embodied the VIRTUES of America. He was a patriot, even when it was unpopular to love our country. He always looked for the best in his fellow man, confident we would live up to his belief in us. He loved his Creator, his family, and his country, and sought to serve them with his utmostwhich he did until the day he went to be with his Lord. Radio has lost the voice of one of her founding fathers, but America bears his imprint in the essential decency he promoted and the legacy he left for us all, following the admonishment of a much earlier Paul in the Scriptures he so revered: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirableif anything is excellent or praiseworthythink about such things. Preserving the memory of the hopeful broadcaster who shared the news of the day in a fresh, honest, and entertaining manner is even more important as our culture moves farther away from the virtues Paul Harvey held dear. In the years to come, our struggle will be figuring out how to explain the importance of Harveys sunny, indomitable outlook to future generations. Paul J. Baturas Good Day! gives us an excellent place to start.
Mike Huckabee
April 2009
PROLOGUE
Taps at Reveille
In the warmth and fading light of the late winter Saturday afternoon, Americas longest running and most popular broadcaster slowly and softly slipped away. Paul Harvey, a sunny man of Middle America who chased and reported stories from all over the world, was ninety years of age.
Though February 28, 2009 was a good day for the inhabitants of heaven, it was a sad day for those still on earth. Everybody knew it would happen; his passing was ultimately inevitable; but somehow, it was still startling. Maybe we were beginning to believe him when he said hed go on forever.
We earn the sweet by-and-by, by how we deal with the messy here-and-now,
His life was as deep and as wide as it was long.
To the millions of his listeners spanning seventy years of broadcasting, Paul Harveys words were akin to a balm on a burn. His voice was settling and reassuring, with a laconic cadence as distinctive and intoxicating as it was soothing. You can almost hear the amber waves of grain, as his longtime friend, actor, and comedian Danny Thomas once said about Pauls voice. Turning the dial during one of his programs was nearly impossible. He always left his listeners wanting a little more. Maybe thats how we all feel now that the golden voice has fallen silent.
To have met Paul Harvey was to have witnessed the walk and talk of a gentle and gracious spirit. Simple, sincere, and humble, there was no measure of braggadocio or posturing for position. He was comfortable in his own skin and unconcerned with labels, but very interested in truthwherever it might lead.
He and his late wife Lynne were the closest thing to royalty the broadcasting business had. My father and mother created from thin air what one day became radio and television news, Paul Harvey Aurandt Jr. said, hours after his fathers passing. So in the past year, an industry has lost its godparents and today millions have lost a friend.
Chapter One
A Boy of Tulsa
Forty-four-year-old Harry Harrison Aurandt stepped out onto his front porch at 1014 East Fosteria Street Just above the fold, news out of El Paso, Texas reported the death of 200 Mexicans at Pilar de Concho in a clash between the federal command of General Ernesto Garcia and Francisco Villa. In lighter news, Tulsa county roads expert E. B. Guthrey had grabbed headlines that morning for being the first person to drive a locally manufactured automobile up to the summit of Pikes Peak out west in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A local high-profile murder trial was ending, a conviction likely. Coverdales, The Popular Price Store, on Main Street, was advertising dress shirts for 50 cents, cotton blankets for $3.45, and womens fall suits ranging in price between $27.50 and $49.75. A car dealership at 316 East 2nd Street was highlighting a 1917 Studebaker for $500. An elegant 1917 Marmon touring car was listed for only $2,500.
Walking back up the steps to the house, past the porch swing, Harry Aurandt was distracted. His adrenaline was high and his excitement was mounting. His beautiful wife of fifteen years, Anna Dagmar Aurandt, was resting inside the gray clapboard residence and would give birth to his only son by the days end. Nobody knows if Harry took the time to turn the page of the paper on this particular Wednesday morning. If he had done so, he would surely have seen two items with almost prophetic relevance. Just under the heading Daily Food were printed the words of the prophet Jeremiah: Call unto me and I will answer thee and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.
Later that evening, Paul Harvey Aurandt entered the world.
If a producer was casting the role of an old-time radio newsman who could hear and identify with the heartbeat of Middle America, care a little about a lot of things, appreciate the value of hard work, marvel at the eccentricities of mankind, admire the scrappy, and respect the wealthyhe probably would have scripted Tulsa, Oklahoma as his boyhood hometown. Established by the Muskogee Native American tribe in 1826, Tallasi, meaning old town, would prosper as a cattle town until the discovery of oil in 1901 transformed it into a little New York, full of fortune seekers and home to a symphony, ballet, and opera. By the time Oklahoma entered the Union in 1907, the city of Tulsa boasted a population of just over 7,000 people.