Veteran broadcaster Harvey Lee Hudson Jr. dies

Over nearly 70 years, the baritone-to-bass radio voice of Harvey Lee Hudson Jr. woke Virginians up. It entertained them in their cars, sold them Cadillacs, talked to them from his home on Christmas morning while they opened gifts and, most recently, reminisced about the way things used to be on a show called "Harvey Hudson's Passing Parade."

Mr. Hudson, who went from a boy entranced by a crystal radio set built by his father to the Richmond Broadcasters Hall of Fame, died Sunday in a Richmond hospital. He was 88.

"It's a huge loss," said Tim Timberlake, who as master of ceremonies Sunday night dedicated a Richmond Pops Band concert to Mr. Hudson's memory.

"He was one of those larger-than-life personalities that loved what he did so much that it was contagious." He could charm a crowd on the radio, at a cocktail party or as the emcee for an event.

"He was the total package," Timberlake said.

Jan Carlton, who joined Hudson on the air weekly in "Harvey Hudson's Passing Parade," called him "the icon of radio here in the Richmond area. . . . He was sharp as a tack. At 88, he still had that voice, still had his wits about him. He really was a one-of-a-kind person."

She said they visited sponsors for the show last Monday, with him "dressed in that Harvey dapper way. He looked great." On Tuesday, he had a stroke.

His son by marriage, John R. Dickinson of Roanoke, said, "He had 88 years of great health and five kind of [lousy] days. That's not such a bad way to go."

Mr. Hudson was in his 60s when he married Bobbie Dement, who died in 2006.

"He was so great in the family role, especially with my children and all the grandchildren," Dickinson said. "We had fun with him. We were able to introduce him to a lot of things he had never had in his life of bachelorhood, such as babies throwing Cheerios at him."

Mr. Hudson also had a soft spot for the Virginia Home, where he frequently visited people with irreversible physical disabilities.

"They were his special people," Carlton said. "A lot of people thought of him as a frivolous radio personality. There was another side that was extremely caring and considerate. He was a friend and a mentor."

Mr. Hudson came by his love of entertainment honestly, having accompanied his father to see vaudeville, comedians, dancers and stage shows that came through his native Richmond. His mother, Lillie Layman Hudson, was his first audience, laughing while her adolescent son "announced" before a vacuum cleaner-handle "microphone, " mimicking the one-liner style, storytelling and shenanigans of his favorite radio comedians.

During the height of the Depression, his parents paid for elocution lessons so he could speak properly and comfortably in public.

While Mr. Hudson was majoring in English and economics at the University of Richmond, the college president arranged for a radio audition for him.

At 18 in 1940, Mr. Hudson became a part-time announcer for WRVA Radio, the voice of the station-identification breaks. After graduation in 1942, he went full time.

When World War II erupted, the John Marshall High School Cadet Corps alumnus was turned down for service "because I didn't have a trigger finger," he recalled in the interview. He'd lost several fingers on his right hand as the result of a traffic crash when he was 7.

By 1946, when he left for WLEE Radio, he was an established morning-show personality who would rise to vice president at the new station.

A businessman who had studied at the University of Virginia and the Harvard University School of Business, Mr. Hudson knew how to sell his sponsors but also how to have fun with what he called "stunts," such as broadcasting from the top of the FFV bakery tower in Richmond or from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

In a 2009 interview, he said he didn't mind wearing women's bloomers at carnivals, cruising Richmond in the 1950s in a two-tone plaid-top green Hudson Hornet or jumping into a Byrd Park lake in a new wash-and-wear suit.

He also served as vice president of Nationwide Communications and as manager of television station WXEX (now WRIC).

Since 1976, when he left WLEE, he traveled locally and nationally with his own consulting company and starred in new radio and TV programs and ads.

His "firsts" included hosting the first nighttime radio talk show in Richmond on WRNL in 1978 and being the first Richmond radio personality to broadcast stage-side from the Miss America pageant. He earned legions of professional awards.

He emceed the Miss Richmond and Miss Virginia pageants for years and was in demand as a toastmaster, radio trainer, professional speaker and spokesman.

He was a founding partner in TVX Broadcasting Group, which started and acquired independent radio stations, including WRLH and other stations in larger markets before being sold in 1991.

Since 1992, he had been a part-time radio host.

A cousin, Jane Dwyer, said Mr. Hudson's departure marks "the end of a radio era here in Richmond. He knew that. He talked about it recently that radio had changed so. It wasn't the same. But he loved it. He absolutely loved it."

In addition to John R. Dickinson, Mr. Hudson is survived by sons Marcus P. Dickinson of Bahama, N.C., and William W. Dickinson of Knoxville, Tenn.; a daughter, Anne Dickinson L'Orange of Windsor, Colo.; and nine grandchildren.

A funeral will be held Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Epiphany Lutheran Church, 1400 Horsepen Road, with burial to follow in Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Contact Ellen Robertson at (804) 649-6115 or .

Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or .