Harry Boomer reporting from the streets of Cleveland, wearing one of his trademark wide brims.
On Dec. 27, 1971, Washington DC radio station WPGC 95.5 AM/FM hired a young man with little to no broadcast experience named Harry Boomer.
Today that man, Harry Boomer, is a household name across northeast Ohio.
After attending Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, Va., Harry started out serving in various D.C.-area radio station management positions, including music director, assistant program director, and news director, including a stint as news director for Radio One's flagship station, WOL-1450 AM.
Along with his early radio career, Harry was a regular emcee on the DC-area club scene, hosting the likes of Sam and Dave, The Temptations, The O'Jays, The Whispers, The Stylistics, Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass, Lou Rawls, Jerry Butler and many other popular acts of the early ‘70s, typically at D.C.’s downtown Mark IV Supper Club.
Boomer made an attractive job candidate in Ohio in 1988, when he applied to manage and program WBXT-900 AM in Canton at the suggestion of his brother's Howard Law School roommate.
Boomer became a reporter, producer, and major contributor for National Public Radio in the early 1990s and began covering assignments for WOIO/WUAB-TV 43 and Ideastream/WCPN-90.3 FM. He was promoted to assistant news director, and WCPN was awarded Ohio Public Radio Newsroom of the Year under his direction.
Harry Boomer on the studio set at WOIO/WUAB
Currently the senior reporter at Channel 19 News, Harry is also the executive producer and host of CW In Focus, a Sunday morning public affairs show that typically spotlights community groups and grass roots issues. He has the distinction of being the longest, continuous on air-anchor/reporter for both WOIO CBS 19 and WUAB The CW 43, Cleveland. At 31 years and counting, he’s making Cleveland broadcast history every day he shows up for work.
Boomer’s love of his Cleveland community shines through in his community-quality programming and his personal, trustworthy on-air presence.
His work has had a lasting impact on the Cleveland local broadcasting ecosystem — from WCPN’s debut of Boomer’s statewide news magazine program, “Infohio,” to his regular seat on the popular Ideastream/WVIZ/Cleveland Public Television show, Feagler and Friends, hosted by iconic Clevelander Dick Feagler.
A three-time Emmy-nominated journalist, Boomer has won major awards from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the Ohio Associated Press, Ohio Educational Telecommunications, Women in Communications, the Press Club of Cleveland, and the National Association of Black Journalists [NABJ]. He was inducted into the Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Press Club of Cleveland’s Hall of Fame in 2018.
In 2014, Boomer was honored as a History Maker. His life's story in now part of a permanent digital repository of American history.
Many Clevelanders can trade “Where’s Waldo” style stories of Boomer sightings at local grocery stores, gas stations and restaurants, often sporting his trademark wide brim hats. Far fewer know of the time he invests as a trustee of those Cleveland professional and civic organizations, including the Cleveland NABJ chapter, Ohio Associated Press, North East Ohio Health Services, The Ohio Center for Broadcasting, and First Tee Cleveland. He has served three times as president of the Cleveland NABJ, and the group has twice been named Chapter of the Year under his guidance. He played a key role in Cleveland’s selection as the host city for the 2025 NABJ national convention.
The “preacher’s kid” from Turkey, North Carolina is a true “Baby Boomer” in many ways. In addition to being a proud member of that generation, he’s the youngest of eight siblings, making him the baby of a family of ten Boomers.
Harry’s 50-year broadcasting career spans the same period that studies reveal the increased disconnection between legacy media reporters and the communities they are responsible for covering.
There is no such disconnect for Harry Boomer, who still regularly signs off local broadcasts by reading out his email address and phone number to offer himself to his audience as community event host or emcee. A Hough neighborhood resident, his close-knit connection with Greater Clevelanders is evidenced through a constant stream of community email responses, phone calls, event host invitations and emcee appearances.
The intimacy of Boomer’s relationship with his trusting Cleveland community is most clearly revealed when he signs off by encouraging audience members to call him Harry and his signature: “Please keep saying hello when you see me out and about — it means a lot to me".
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Rich Weiss of the Neighborhood and Community Media Association contributed reporting for this article.
