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December 2, 2008

Friends, colleagues look back on the life of longtime Valley newsman Harry Frey

From early 1930s to early 1980s, Frey was a constant in Terre Haute

By Crystal Garcia

TERRE HAUTE — What Walter Cronkite did for the nation, Harry E. Frey did for the Wabash Valley, according to friends and colleagues.

“Harry pretty much defined journalism and news in those beginning days of television broadcasting,” said Dave Bailey, 64, who worked with Frey for about 16 years at WTHI.

Frey, 94, died Sunday in Clinton. Formerly of Terre Haute, Frey served as a radio announcer from 1932-1942, worked in furniture sales from 1942-1955, in radio sales and news from 1958-1962 and retired from television news at WTHI in 1982 before serving as the administrative assistant to Mayor Pete Chalos until 1993.

“Harry Frey was a good man,” said Ronn Mott, 72, who worked with Frey at WMFT radio station and during his time at WTHI. “He had been around the horn, so to speak.”

Mott said Frey led by example, was a gentleman and always wanted to be accurate. He also remembered how pronunciation was important to Frey. “I hear people on the radio today they can’t even pronounce their own names, let alone somebody else’s,” he said.

Sally Whitehurst, 51, was so inspired by Frey that she worked to study broadcasting and began at WTHI in 1978, she said.

She was so excited to read live on the news next to him that she called her parents to tell them to be sure to watch when she found out, she said.

“He was special,” Whitehurst said. “He always had good advice, he was calming, he was professional, he was intelligent, he was our Rock of Gibraltar.”

Though she now works as the assistant vice president of marketing at First Financial Bank, Whitehurst looks back at her reporting days fondly. “I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything,” she said. “I don’t regret any of it because I was truly blessed to work with him, he was the best.”

Like Whitehurst, Dave Piker, 60, also remembered Frey as a great mentor. Piker met Frey in 1967 when he began as a part-time employee in the news department at WTHI. “He was very, very well-respected as truly the very best broadcast journalist in Terre Haute and one of the very best in Indiana, and I think that’s indicated by the fact that he was elected into the Indiana Broadcasters Hall of Fame,” Piker said. “He had the trust of the community. He was certainty the dean of broadcast reporters of Terre Haute.”

In 2006, Frey was inducted into the Indiana Broadcasters Hall of Fame and into the Wabash Valley Musicians Hall of Fame in 2007. “He was a friendly person, but a square shooter,” Bailey said. “I think when you are that kind of person, it’s easy to look at him as a friend and always know in the back of your mind, you didn’t have to worry about an ulterior motive for anything.”

Bailey said the saying “what you see is what you get” described Frey best.

Frey’s son Eric wasn’t surprised to hear people remembered him best for his time on television or as the Walter Cronkite of the Valley.

“He was reliable and believable and they thought Dad was kind of the local equivalent of that,” Eric said. “I was always real proud of him growing up, but he did so many different things.”

One of Eric’s favorite memories was going to the radio station on his birthday and hearing the music makers play “Happy Birthday” for him.

Including Eric, Frey had two sons. He was also survived by his second wife, three stepgrandchildren, six grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren.

In addition to radio and television, Frey was a musician and a runner. He also collected bottles and Indy 500 badges.

Eric Frey wasn’t surprised to hear that no one had a negative thing to say about his father because he was well-respected and everyone thought he was fair, he said.

Friends and colleagues of Frey echoed those sentiments.

“I never heard anybody say, ‘that lying, cheating, son-of-a-b----,’” Mott said, “and that is a rarity in our business.”

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