On February 28th America lost an iconic, legendary radio man. No one, not his son, not Gil Gross nor any other sit-in voice (Dallasite Ron Chapman) will replace the incomparable Paul Harvey. Many young people have missed out on his folksy, comforting, fatherly, friendly, familiar voice delivering the News! and “the rest of the stories”. It is sad to think the youth of today will know not what they’ve missed.

I for one took great comfort listening to Paul on the radio. My commute into Dallas each day was not complete without Paul telling me the day’s stories at 7:30 a.m. on The Big WBAP 820. While on my way to work, I remember a fateful day in the mid-80’s when Paul reported a Hollywood-style kidnap and murder event in western Kansas over the radio. I took interest because of the story’s geographic closeness to home. It was an incident involving ex-cons, sheriff and state police, and one innocent man. That man – the victim of a violent shoot out – coincidentally was my wife’s uncle. Paul Harvey hit a little closer to home that day with his News! than he usually did. It was his comforting grace – a grace for the family that would be expected from a compassionate preacher at an emotional funeral – that eased the mournful shock and started the healing.

They buried Paul this past weekend. At his funeral, paster John Buchanan said the radio legend had an almost religious devotion for the lives of ordinary human beings. He considered them “sacred,” Buchanan said. “He saw the significance of everyday human life,”  That was the case with this incident, this story about Deb’s family. Paul Harvey did not know Uncle Glen, but he realized an ordinary human being was senselessly killed, and he told the world. He said it in a simple, kind, and compassionate way employing his uncanny knack of making a bad day, a……………….Good Day! with just a few soothing words across the radio airwaves.

Life moves on to another page in his story, but that doesn’t make me long for more of his radio show and unmistakable voice any less. I miss him already. Rest in peace Paul Harvey.

Mourners pay tribute