The article below, by Bill Schwanke, appeared in The Missoulian, March 3, 2009

 

Radio icon Harvey fired from 1st  job in Missoula

It seems Paul Harvey was hired – and fired – from his first radio job in Missoula by former KGVO Radio owner A.J. “Art” Mosby.

At least that’s how the venerable newscaster, who died over the weekend at the age of 90, once related the story to current Missoula radio personality Peter Christian who, ironically, also works for KGVO.

About 10 years ago Christian obtained Paul Harvey’s office number in Chicago, and at about 3:30 a.m. Mountain Time one day decided to give it a try.

When the voice at the other end of the line answered with, “Paul Harvey,” Christian said he nearly fell out of his chair.

During the conversation Harvey told Christian that, after about a year in Missoula, Mosby called him into his office to say he was in the wrong business.

“He told Paul Harvey he had a silly-sounding delivery and should forget about broadcasting and go into sales,” Christian said Monday.

Despite that parting, which sent Harvey and his wife of one year to Chicago, the renowned broadcaster stayed in touch with Mosby and often had kind things to say about Missoula.

He recorded birthday greetings when Mosby hit the age of 80. And he eulogized him on one of his national radio broadcasts when Mosby died in 1970.

University of Montana professor emeritus of radio/television Bill Knowles is writing a book about Montana broadcast pioneers.

Included in “Montana’s Pioneer Broadcasters: Service, Adventure and Fun” – which Knowles hopes will go to press in May – is some information about Harvey.

Born Paul Harvey Aurendt, the soon-to-be-world-famous radio announcer and his new wife, Angel, came to Missoula in 1941 so he could go to work for Mosby.

Harvey was in Missoula for about a year.

At the time of his arrival, Mosby’s daughter Mary Jane was working at KGVO as receptionist and traffic coordinator. She told Knowles in about 1989 that she “vividly remembered the tall man from Tulsa and his new wife” when he showed up at KGVO to work for her father.

According to Knowles, she also remembered Harvey and his new bride constantly smooching when they were together.

Harvey started his career doing man-on-the-street interviews on North Higgins. Later, he convinced listeners he was flying around to visit small towns in the area when in fact he was sitting in a studio.

Said Mary Jane to Knowles: “People in these towns would actually go out and look for his plane. He had quite an imagination. He was really something. We always got calls on the Paul Harvey Show because people were always wondering where that plane was.”

Mary Jane married disc jockey Hugh Bader later that same year. After the two moved to Billings, she told Knowles that Harvey occasionally came through town when traveling, and she was able to visit with him.

In 1966, then-KGVO program director Gene Peterson received a letter from Harvey on the 35th anniversary of the radio station.

Harvey wrote: “I’ve waited until this last minute to try to figure out some way to help salute the alma mater. I’m speaking in Texas on Jan. 18 and leaving today to be gone through that date. I see no opportunity to tape anything.”

“Memories of KGVO are so intertwined with the first year of our marriage 25 years ago that I do wish Angel and I could attend the birthday party,” Harvey continued. “Please greet for us anybody old enough to remember. … Apartment 4 out on University Avenue is forever enshrined in our hearts. Sincerely, Paul Harvey.”

Some four years later, after Mosby died, Harvey eulogized him on his nationwide broadcast of Nov. 30, 1970.

Knowles got a copy of the audio of that broadcast from Mary Jane in which Harvey said: “A death in the family. Art Mosby of Missoula, Montana, a pioneer broadcaster and land developer, for more than 30 years a personal friend. The boss was vigorous through his 82nd birthday.

“He will be buried in the shelter of the white-fanged Rockies in the valley which he watered with his sweat and fertilized with his footprints through a fruitful lifetime. If there is any room for improvement in heaven, they sent for the right man.”

Mosby’s longtime secretary, Fritzie Yonce, who still lives in Missoula, wasn’t there when Harvey went to work for her boss. But she remembered meeting him when he returned to Missoula to speak at a Chamber of Commerce banquet in the 1960s.

She also has an audiotape of that birthday greeting that arrived in time for Mosby’s 80th birthday.

Yonce said Harvey spent an afternoon in the hospital with the ailing Mosby when he came for the Chamber banquet. After the speech he went to The Mansion, the restaurant Mosby owned near the top of Whitaker Drive, for a gathering.

“I thought he was a real nice person,” Yonce said Monday. “I loved listening to him. He was very kind and considerate.”

 

 

The following speech by Paul Harvey was delivered on Super Bowl Sunday – Feb. 3, 2013 as an ad for Dodge Ram trucks:

 

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.” So God made a farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon — and mean it.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year.’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain’n from ‘tractor back,’ put in another seventy-two hours.” So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church.

“Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life ‘doing what dad does.'” So God made a farmer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_God_Made_a_Farmer