Gary LaPierre Wraps Up 42 Years At WBZ

[Scott Fybush]

Paul B Currier wrote:
> I also recall Gary filling in for Paul Harvey NEWS!  at noon some time ago.
> Pretty good recognition for a Mass. country boy.

Therein lies a tale...

Gary filled in for Harvey at least three times that I know of. The first 
couple of times, ABC paid for Gary to come down to New York and 
originate the broadcast from the ABC Radio Networks facility on West End 
Avenue, using Harvey's staff in Chicago to help him write it. I'm 
guessing Jay McQuaide would have filled in for Gary on BZ those 
mornings, but no longer recall for certain.

But the third time, Gary didn't want to make the trip down to New York, 
and persuaded ABC to let him originate the broadcast from Studio E at 
1170 Soldiers Field Road. ABC gave Gary money to hire a per diem writer 
to work with him in Boston on the broadcasts, and since I was Gary's 
writer at the time, I got to do the honors.

This is one of my favorite memories from my time at BZ: standing in 
studio E with Gary and Bill Flaherty, who was engineering the ISDN 
connection to ABC in New York (brand-new technology for us at that 
point), watching the clock tick down to the start of the first feed. 
Bill was excited. I was excited. And here's the thing that still sticks 
out in my mind: Gary was excited. Here's a guy who's hung out with the 
Beatles, interviewed presidents, and had probably spent more time on the 
air by then than I'd spent alive at all - and HE's as excited as the 
rest of us at the chance to be Paul Harvey for a day.

It was a good day for the boy from Shelburne Falls, and for the kid from 
Rochester, too, come to think of it.

s