Roy West was Richmond’s mayor when Dick Harman attended his first meeting of the Richmond City Council as its new public announcer.
The year was 1988, and Harman, a journeyman broadcaster who preferred sports over news, took the job on a trial run.
“I said, ‘OK. Let’s give it 30 days. We’ll see how I like it.’ ”
Thirty days turned into 30 years for Harman, who has sat through an estimated 700 meetings of the nine-member council in the three decades since. His run ends next Monday, when the 79-year-old is scheduled to deliver his final broadcast of WCVE’s “Gavel-to-Gavel” that airs on cable channel 24 and streams online. The meeting had been scheduled for today but was postponed because of Sunday’s snowstorm.
Harman delivers a live, just-the-facts agenda review and recap of the council’s action — or inaction — with a steadiness honed over decades. The segments, which bookend the council meeting, serve as an entry point into local civics. His delivery of them has endeared him to viewers and elected officials alike.
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“[Harman’s] knowledge of what has gone on in City Hall is unparalleled and will never be repeated,” said Jon Baliles, a former councilman and one-time adviser to Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney.
To put Harman’s longevity in perspective: He was Baliles’ basketball coach when the former councilman was a student at St. Michael’s Episcopal School. By the time Baliles took office in 2013, Harman had been the council’s public announcer for nearly a quarter-century.
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Harman saw himself behind a microphone as a 5-year-old taken by the disc jockeys in his native Buffalo, N.Y. After working at local stations as a high schooler, he scored a segment at his college radio station, spinning schmaltzy tunes on the nighttime show “Star Dreams.”
He graduated from the University of Buffalo in 1962 with a degree in speech therapy he said he never used and reported for duty in the U.S. Army the next day. He served for six years.
Early in his radio career, Harman bounced around, working in Binghamton, N.Y.; Louisville, Ky.; and Hampton Roads.
“Never made a lot of money, but I always had a lot of fun,” he said.
Once in Virginia, he began working in the advertising business, but also kept busy as a broadcaster for several local sports teams. Among them: the Virginia Squires of the American Basketball Association. The regional team played some games at a then-newly built Richmond Coliseum.
In 1971, the team drafted a prodigious forward named Julius Erving, or, as he’s now known to basketball fans, Dr. J. Harman recalls riding back to Norfolk from Richmond on the team bus and arriving amid a blizzard.
“Who’s pushing cars out of snow dunes but Julius Erving? He was just that kind of a guy. I always thought the world of him.”
He learned of the council’s public announcer job from a friend of a friend and remembers his first meeting well. It was the second gathering of the council in March 1988. West and then-city manager Robert Bobb declared April “Barbershop Harmony Month,” then refused to fork over a plaque to the recipients until they crooned for attendees gathered in the council chambers.
At times contentious, council meetings can wear on all involved, but present and past members say the public announcer has never let it get to him.
“He always had that good smile, that good sense of humor,” said Reva Trammell, who has known Harman the longest of the current council members. “Nothing ever seemed like it bothered him.”
More astounding than his glass-half-full outlook after 30 years and nine months chronicling the happenings at City Hall: Harman has missed just four meetings in that span: three for medical reasons, and one when his mother died.
Two came last year, after a bad fall sent him to the hospital. He returned to a surprise last November, when the council announced it was naming the council chambers’ press gallery in his honor and unveiled a placard bearing his name.
“I think the longest-serving member hasn’t been here half the time you have,” said council President Chris Hilbert, who joined the body’s other eight members in thanking Harman for his service to the city and region.
“That was totally unexpected but greatly appreciated,” Harman told viewers later that night as he recapped the meeting for those watching at home. “Quite an award. Quite an honor. What a way to come back to Richmond City Council.”
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Harman had been ready to walk away at that point, but couldn’t bring himself to leave the job after receiving the honor. Diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2013, a doctor told him he had a year to live. He has resolved to stay busy in spite of the disease, but recently decided he wants to spend more time with friends and family, including a 21-month-old granddaughter.
“It meant a lot to him that he was able to continue on for this many years, and especially recently in lieu of his health challenges that he was able to keep it up for so long when a lot of folks probably would have called it quits before,” said Clara Burner, Harman’s longtime partner.
The pair met in 1990 but reconnected in 2002, when Burner joined a group of retirees at a council budget hearing. Harman left the press gallery to strike up a conversation with her, and asked her out on a date.
“We’ve been together ever since,” he said.
Next Monday’s scheduled meeting — Harman’s last and the council’s last of the year — may offer parting fireworks. Against the mayor’s wishes, a bloc of council members is pushing to create a commission to review the $1.4 billion plans centering on a new Richmond Coliseum. Whatever happens, Harman will guide viewers through it before one final sign-off.
The milestone will be bittersweet, Burner said. She won’t make the trip to City Hall for it. Instead, she’ll tune in at home.