Harsha served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Jan. 3, 1961, to Jan. 3, 1981. He was born Jan. 1, 1921, in Portsmouth and graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1939. He received his B.A. in 1943 from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and his L.L.B. from Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1947.
From 1942 to 1944, Harsha was in the U.S. Marine Corps. After his admission to the bar on March 6, 1947, he was Portsmouth’s assistant solicitor until 1951, when he was elected Scioto County prosecuting attorney. He served one four-year term, then was elected to Congress in 1961, where he served for the next 20 years.
Harsha was succeeded in Congress by Bob McEwen.
“He was like a father to me, there’s no question about it,” McEwen said Tuesday after learning of Harsha’s death. “I was just with him just two weeks ago. I am so glad that I did that. ... He was cheerful and friendly, and I had a good visit with Rosemary.”
Harsha married the former Rosemary Spellerberg on Sept. 28, 1946.
McEwen remembers as a young man hitchhiking to Washington, D.C., to volunteer as Harsha’s intern.
“He had never had an intern and I had to convince the staff to get one. And they worked on him, and so he said I could stay for a month. At the end of the month he said I could stay the rest of the summer. Then he asked me to come back. Then he offered me his chief of staff position the following year, but instead I went off to law school,” McEwen said. “We stayed very close in a mentor relationship. I trusted his judgment, his character and his principles exclusively.”
McEwen credits Harsha with many of the projects that brought jobs and infrastructure to the old Sixth District, which ran down U.S. 23 from Columbus to Portsmouth and westward.
“The schools are better in the old Sixth District because there are more jobs. There are more jobs because there are more sewer and water systems, better highways and industrial parks, and airports,” McEwen said. “All of that is because they had Bill Harsha as their congressman for 20 years. There would be no Route 32 if it wasn’t for Bill Harsha. And Clermont County would not be a part of Appalachia and the benefit that came from that were it not for Bill Harsha. There would be no Caesar’s Creek that provides the economic development of Warren County were it not for Bill Harsha.”
McEwen said one of his greatest accomplishments was to complete the Route 32 project started by Harsha.
Fourth District Court of Appeals Judge Matthew McFarland works closely with Harsha’s son, Judge William H. Harsha III, and remembers an incident in which the elder Harsha went above and beyond for the young attorney.
“Maybe 10 years ago at a Lincoln Day dinner, they had a silent auction, and there was a set of Congressional cufflinks that were his, and I bought them,” McFarland said. “The next day I was in my office, and he had a little office paperweight that went with it, that he thought I might like. And he just brought it to my office and he gave it to me. I thought that was really gentlemanly. It was really nice of him.”
A secretary in Harsha III’s office told the Portsmouth Daily Times Harsha was on vacation when he received word of his father’s death, and was in the process of returning home.
“There’s only two reasons people run for office,” McEwen said. “One is to be somebody, sheriff or mayor, and the other is to do something. And everybody is a combination of those two. But Bill Harsha was overwhelmingly someone who wanted to do something.”
Arrangements are pending at the F.C. Daehler Mortuary in Portsmouth.
Frank Lewis may be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 232, or flewis@heartlandpublications.com.
Dave Barker, AMVETS State Service Officer