Hundreds mourn loss of radio star Harvey

CHICAGO, March 8 (UPI) -- The death of syndicated radio star Paul Harvey was a great loss to the broadcast world, friends and family told scores of mourners in Chicago.

During a Saturday funeral service at Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church, Harvey's son Paul Jr. echoed his father's famed words regarding the historic passing of President Franklin Roosevelt, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday.

"A great tree has fallen,'' the younger Harvey said. "An empty place has opened up against the sky."

Bruce Dumont, a close friend of the broadcaster offered that it wasn't "just the way he delivered the news, it was the news that he wrote.":

"He selected the stories. He put all of it in his own style … . It was the words and music of Paul Harvey that will live on," Dumont said.

Harvey died Feb. 28 in Phoenix at the age of 90, ending a heralded career that included hosting the radio program "The Rest of the Story."

Nearly 200 people were on hand to remember Harvey Saturday, including Dumont, the president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications, and Citadel Broadcasting Chairman Farid Suleman.