Bob Harper has countless stories about his more than 48 years working as a journalist in Frederick. Some are funny. Some are scary. All are intriguing.

Harper has seen more in his 72 years of life than most people his age. One of the biggest events he covered as a reporter was a mid-air plane collision in 1958 over the town of Jefferson. “I saw this one guy who didn’t make it in the crash, and he was lying there on the hillside,” he said, going on to say that he had to quickly look away because the image was horrifying. 

Another big project Harper recalls working on was “The Frederick Flood of ’76,” a commemorative photo book produced by The Frederick Post and The News. The book covered the flood that submerged downtown Frederick and surrounding areas in 1976. “I got the job of putting all the locations with the pictures,” he said. “That was an interesting time.” 

“I started working in the business office first,” Harper said of his early newspaper days. He eventually moved to typesetting and then on to reporting, which is where he discovered his real passion — covering the court system. “I loved the courts,” he said. “I thought that was the most interesting of all because you could learn so much about the law.”

He still reads the paper every day and can name several current News-Post employees and the “beats” they cover.  However, his primary interest in the paper has changed a bit. “The first place I look now is the obituaries. (I'm) starting to see a lot of my friends in there,” he said with some sadness.  That sadness is short lived though, as he chimes back in and said, “I couldn’t have had a better job.”

Harper eventually worked his way up from reporter to Senior Assistant Managing Editor, before he retired on April 2, 2003.  “Everybody always laughed about my desk and everything I had on it,” he said. He packed up that desk in boxes that have sat filled with memories in his bedroom since the day he retired. He is just now getting around to rummaging through them, and he makes a promise — with a chuckle — that if he finds anything that belongs to The News-Post, he will return it.

 Staff file photo by Sam Yu