The LuLac Edition #744, Mar.1st, 2009

PHOTO INDEX: PAUL HARVEY.

SO LONG AMERICANS!!!!!

When I was 9, I was struck down with a triple combination of the mumps, chicken pox and scarletine. Out of commission for weeks and isolated in my room, the radio was my only means of electronic communication. As I recovered, I surfed the radio dial and one morning I heard a big booming voice say "Good Morning Americans, this is Paul Harvey with news and comment." The rapid style inflection of his voice caught my attention. His announcement of the page numbers on his script only intensified my imagination. I was no longer in the land of Huntley and Brinkley anymore. After that first encounter, for years I listened to Paul Harvey. Evebn as his voice got thick with age, and he had more guest hosts than Johnny Carson, I tuned in. It was inevitable that he would die but even when you hear of a passing, it still provokes a jolt. ABC Network spokesman Louis Adams told us Harvey died Saturday at his winter home in Phoenix, surrounded by family. No cause of death was immediately available. Harvey never viewed himself as a newsman, even though some 18 million people tuned into his daily reports to hear his 15-minute take on the day's events."I'm a professional parade watcher who can't wait to get out of bed every morning and rush down to the teletypes to pan for gold," he told CNN's Larry King in 1988. That he did with a vengeance since those teletype days in 1951, arriving at his Chicago studio in the pre-dawn hours to produce two news and commentary segments and his evening The Rest of the Story (written by his son, Paul) which were carried on some 1,100 radio stations and 400 Armed Forces Radio Network stations. He based himself in Chicago, flew aboard his Lear jet to give corporate speeches and commuted by limo each day from his 27-room home in suburban River Forest, Ill., to his 16th floor studio above a street sign that reads Paul Harvey Drive. When Harvey was 81 in 2000, his sole employer for all those years, ABC Radio Networks, signed him to a 10-year, $100 million contract. Rivals who had lost in the bidding told him they'd be back in 2010. That of course was not to be.
Harvey's ability to sell products in advertisements, via spots that read and which flowed seamlessly from his news stories, were legendary. He is considered the greatest radio salesman of all time and sponsors — only one in 15 were accepted — were required to sign on for at least a year. Harvey was heard locally on WILK Radio. For a broadcaster that gave us some of the best days of our lives......we say a final and heartfelt "Good day!!!!!"

KATSOCK BACK

Christine Katsock, a frequent name on the local ballot, is running for the first office she ever sought, Wilkes-Barre Area School Board. Katsock said she and relative political newcomer Tom Malloy will announce their candidacies for the board at a special gathering Tuesday, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., at A Touch of Class Catering at the Palace on George Avenue in Wilkes-Barre. Other school board candidates up this year are Brian Dunn, Michael McGinley, Jim Height and Lynn Evans. Katsock told the Times Leader she and Malloy are not running as a team but did a joint announcement for economic reasons. She has cross filed on both tickets.

MITCHELL IN

Still another candidate on the GOP has filed for the seat of Prothonotary. Republican Walter Mitchell, of Bear Creek Village, announced his candidacy Saturday at the Luzerne County Republican Headquarters, on Public Square, Wilkes-Barre. That's a busy place these days! Mitchell is in his fourth term as Bear Creek Village mayor and has 31 years of experience in insurance and financial/retirement planning. Others running for the spot are Former Luzerne County Prothonotary Carolee Medico Olenginski, also a Republican, and Democrat Gerald Mullery, an attorney from Newport Township.