Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 12, 1995 TAG: 9505120041
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
You just don't know quite where to start.
A good place might be Thursday's Salem Rotary Club meeting. Harveycutter, in the building he manages, was named the club's ``Outstanding Citizen.'' Besides getting the right guy, the Rotary Club also disproved another theory.
Harveycutter doesn't know everything that goes on in the Salem Civic Center. It just seems like it.
``He has a lot of balls in the air at one time,'' Salem City Manager Randy Smith said. ``Carey hasn't dropped one yet.''
Harveycutter, 43, was surprised by the honor, which the Salem club presented for the 30th time in 39 years. He's not a member, but he usually eats with the Rotary Club at its weekly meetings - in the kitchen. The ``outstanding'' part of the award's title certainly is fitting.
Harveycutter doesn't have much time to sit down.
His title is singular - and yes, the Salem arena often is called the ``Harveydome'' in this business - but his management is diverse. Harveycutter's sports profile has grown while his hairline has receded. He is Salem's point man with the NCAA, which brings two more championships to the home of the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl in the next two weeks. A Salem native and lifelong resident, he came to the civic center in 1968, where his mentor, the late Jack Dame, taught him well.
``Carey deals with so many different people and things, and he speaks all of their languages,'' Smith said. ``That can be tough.''
The new baseball park, scheduled to open next month, will be another addition to a Harveycutter domain that also includes the Salem Football Stadium. Still, it wouldn't be accurate to just call Harveycutter a sports guy. He doesn't just direct the Salem Fair, he originated it.
Not long after he deals with the NCAA softball and baseball tournaments and the Roanoke Valley Horse Show, his arena will be the home for the start of the first national tour of Hootie and The Blowfish. No, that's not the Salem City Council, but David Letterman's favorite new band.
Harveycutter is a husband and father, and a board member who doesn't have time to be bored. As Rev.Bob Copenhaver said in presenting one of the most active lay leaders at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Harveycutter has ``leadership, enthusiasm, imagination, energy and organization.'' However, he has used a cuss word at least twice - about the weather for the 1993 Stagg Bowl and about the weather for the 1994 Stagg Bowl.
Harveycutter's strengths are many, stamina certainly not the least among them. There's another that's particularly keen for a public servant who makes decisions: He listens.
He's an idea man, and he praises others. He shares success with his staff, his city and the Roanoke Valley. There's nobody who enjoys seeing Salem get national attention more than Harveycutter, and although his work may be significant in producing that attention, you'd never know it unless you asked someone else.
Harveycutter never expected to be interviewed about the Stagg Bowl on ESPN last year, just as he didn't expect the Rotary's honor. However, he handled both as anyone who knows Harveycutter would expect.
He did it with thankfulness, with humor, with praise for others, with thoughts of his family and friends and where he's from.
Then he went back to work.
by CNB