This site is best viewed using Mozilla Firefox browser.

What's New

2009-03-01 14:14:00

We lost a good one

Answer: There is always something new isn’t there? This month, among all things, it is the passing of someone who I have long considered to be one of the greatest orators and journalists of our time…Paul Harvey. His death has caused me to have many memories. One is from the late 70’s. Back then, Paul Harvey’s Comments, News and The Rest of the Story were being broadcast on KAKE Radio, 1240 AM. This was back in the day of Gene Rump in the mornings, Captain Bill in early afternoon, and “Hooter” in afternoon drive. I was with KFDI. We had been approached by ABC Entertainment Network to take on their news and features. As we were finishing negotiations, we threw one more item on the table. We said we wanted Paul Harvey. I don’t know how it exactly came to be, but within two days, we had it. What a deal! A few years later in the early 80s, after we had been running Paul Harvey’s features for some time, we brought him to town to a VIP gathering we hosted at Century II. This, as many of you might remember, was a time when we had just short of 20% inflation and interest. There was no good news. Everything coming across the air waves was bad news. I remember at that VIP gathering asking Paul, “Why can’t there be a bit of good news sprinkled in every once in awhile. You know, like instead of saying that there are 9% unemployed, there are 91% employed?” I will never forget his answer. He said, “Charlie, good news doesn’t sell. Everyone thinks their problems are bigger than anyone else’s, until they hear about a typhoon in Bangladesh wiping out thousands, or a fire in Chicago that burned down an entire city block, or a terrible murder-suicide in Florida. Then, they think, ‘Gosh, maybe my problems aren’t so big.’ You see, bad news…in its very weird way…ends up causing people to feel better. Good news causes people to feel worse.” Maybe he was right. How often do people REALLY want to hear about one’s best friend getting a big raise or promotion or winning the lottery? Kind of makes you think. I remember another time when he was telling about a guy in Indiana who had a plan to get rid of dilapidated old barns on Interstate highways. His plan was to paint the north side of old barns to match the view of the horizon looking from south to north; to paint the east side to match the view of the horizon looking from west to east; to paint the south side to match the view of the horizon looking from north to south; and to paint the west side to match the view of the horizon looking from east to west. Paul said at the end of his piece, “He thought he could make them disappear.” His delivery was often worth as much or more than his story. I listened to thousands of his stories over the years. If one was to have looked up what a “pregnant pause” was, I believe there would have been his picture there saying, “What Paul Harvey does so well.” He was a master of it…and all of the other components of inflection. Paul died February 28th at the age of 90. On Sunday, March 8th, I was listening to Dick Bott of the Bott Radio Network. Included in his program for that Sunday morning was an excerpt from a Paul Harvey News Comments program, when he talked about an invocation that Pastor Joe Wright of the Central Christian Church in Wichita had given to the Kansas State Legislature. It was vintage Paul Harvey. I transcribed what he had to say and have used it for my article this month. This was Paul Harvey’s “Page Two” of his noon newscast that day, as he delivered it live from his studios in Chicago. One last caveat before I present it...in more than 70 years of broadcasting, Paul Harvey received more response from this segment of his newscast that day, than any other piece he had ever delivered. “Page Two… Man oh man, they won’t invite Pastor Joe Wright to the Kansas State Legislature again. They invited Pastor Joe Wright of Wichita Central Christian Church to deliver the invocation and he told God on ‘em. Now God knows what they’ve been up to. And no sooner than their guest chaplain concluded their prayer were there three Democrats of the State Legislature on their feet, at their microphones, protesting he can’t talk like that about us. Representative Delbert Gross called the invocation gross, derisive, sanctimonious and overbearing. Representative David Haley called it blasphemous and ignorant. Representative Sabrina Standifer echoed the indignation. What in the world had Pastor Joe said in Topeka, that incited the righteous wrath of three Democrats? Well, I have secured the entire text of the invocation so that you can evaluate it for yourself. What was it that these Democrats didn’t like? Here is what he said: ‘Heavenly Father we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says woe to those who call evil good, and that is exactly what we’ve done. We’ve lost our spiritual equilibrium…we’ve inverted our values. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word in the name of moral pluralism. We’ve worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism. We’ve endorsed perversion and called it alternative lifestyle. We’ve exploited the poor and called it a lottery. We’ve neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We’ve rewarded laziness and called it welfare. Father, in the name of choice we have killed our unborn, and in the name of right to life, we have killed abortionists. We’ve neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem, we have abused power and called it political savvy. We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it taxes…we have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time honored value of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us O God. Know our hearts today. Try us and show us any wicked in us. And then cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of Kansas and who have been ordained by You to govern this great state. Grant them Your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of Your will. I ask it in the name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.’ (long pause) Page Three…” We lost someone very special on February 28th, 2009. Thankfully, we still have Pastor Joe Wright…and others like him…with us.