“Good Days For Paul Harvey” (Magazine, Aug. 4) by Rick Kogan was a “good read” for Paul Harvey’s many listeners.
I first heard him speaking on the radio over 50 years ago. Armed with my two new degrees from Northwestern University’s School of Speech, I was teaching night school at Gary College, Gary, Ind. My public speaking students–many of them steel mill workers by day–had fascinating stories to tell,but often did so in a monotone and had little vocal variety.
Then I discovered the radio commentator who was using the same attention-holding techniques that I was trying to teach my students. One day I heard his dramatic use of the pause. After that I started assigning Paul Harvey’s broadcasts as homework for my students. It worked well, and by the end of the semester, many of them had improved.
