Harry F. Byrd Jr.

Harry Flood Byrd Jr. (December 20, 1914 – July 30, 2013) was an American orchardist, newspaper publisher and politician.

He served in the Senate of Virginia and then represented Virginia in the United States Senate, succeeding his father, Harry F. Byrd Sr. His public service spanned thirty-six years, while he was a publisher of several Virginia newspapers.

Byrd was born December 20, 1914, in Winchester, Virginia, the eldest child of Harry F. Byrd Sr. and his wife Anne Byrd (née Beverley).

His siblings included a sister, Westwood ("Westie"), and two brothers, Richard Evelyn (Dick) and Beverley.

The Byrds were one of the First Families of Virginia, and Byrd was a member of the Virginia Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

His uncle, Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, was a pilot and polar explorer.

In 1931, at his father's urging, young Harry Byrd enrolled at Virginia Military Institute.

Two years later, Byrd transferred to the University of Virginia, where he became a member of the St. Anthony Hall fraternity, but left before graduating due to familial obligations.

The Star had been without a full-time editor since his father left to represent Virginia in the United States Senate in 1933, as the Great Depression intensified.

Upon joining the paper, his father warned him, "If you make too many mistakes, you're gone."

However, the father also arranged for his son to learn the publishing business under the tutelage of John Crown at the Harrisonburg Daily News Record.

Within a year of assuming the helm of the Winchester Star, Byrd became its editor and publisher, although his father retained financial control and advised him on editorials.

Byrd worked with many publishers of small newspapers in Virginia, assuming leadership sometimes directly or otherwise through a seat on the paper's board of directors.

In 1935, Byrd, nicknamed “Young Harry”, left the University of Virginia in Charlottesville to shore up his father's newspaper, The Winchester Star.

He also gave up an opportunity to join a global business in Paris.

He became the publisher of the Harrisonburg Daily News Record from 1936 to 1941 and again from 1946 to 1981, and continued as a member of its board of directors until his death.

Byrd later became owner of the Page Shenandoah Newspaper Corporation, which published The Page News and Courier in Luray and The Shenandoah Valley Herald in Woodstock.

On August 9, 1941, Byrd married Gretchen Thompson.

They had sons Harry and Thomas, and a daughter Beverley.

He requested transfer to a combat position and was assigned to the Central Pacific as an executive officer with a bombing squadron of Consolidated PB2Y Coronados until mustering out in 1946.

During his naval service, he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

After the war, Byrd oversaw construction of a new publishing plant for the Star.

He also became a director of the Associated Press and later served as its vice-president.

In 1948 Byrd won election to the Senate of Virginia for the district including Winchester, the area his father previously represented.

He was the third consecutive generation of the Byrd family to enter politics.

His grandfather Richard Evelyn Byrd Sr. served as the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, and his father had served as a Virginia state senator, Governor of Virginia and United States senator.

Byrd had begun accompanying his father on trips during the elder's governorship, and once remarked that "I was in every county and city in the state by the time I was thirteen years old."

In time Byrd became a key member in his father's statewide political network, known as the Byrd Organization.

Byrd shared his father's belief in fiscal restraint by government, referred to as a "pay-as-you-go" policy.

He reflected part of this populist political legacy when he stated, "I am convinced we have too many laws, too much government regulation, much too much government spending. The very wealthy can take care of themselves, the very needy are taken care of by the government. It is Middle America, the broad cross section, the people who work and to whom the government must look for taxes - it is they who have become the forgotten men and women."

Byrd served in the Senate of Virginia from 1948 to November 1965, where he was Chairman of the General Laws Committee.

As a major player in the Byrd Organization, he supported Massive Resistance, a movement against desegregation which his father announced and led, despite the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

In 1956, Byrd provided strong and integral support of legislation that became known as the Stanley Plan (after then-Virginia Governor Thomas B. Stanley, a Byrd Organization member).

The plan required the closing of all desegregating schools, even those desegregating pursuant to court order.

After the decline of the Byrd Organization due to its massive resistance to racial integration of public schools, he abandoned the Democratic Party in 1970, citing concern about its leftward tilt.

He rehabilitated his political career, becoming the first independent in the history of the U.S. Senate to be elected by a majority of the popular vote.

He left the Page Shenandoah Newspaper Corporation in 1987 and retired as Chairman of the Byrd newspapers in 2001, succeeded by his son Thomas.

In all, he dedicated 78 years to publishing in one capacity or another.

The entire Byrd family owned the publishing company for more than 100 years.

Shortly after his marriage, Byrd volunteered for the United States Navy during World War II and served initially in Navy Public Relations.