Scott Harper

1962 - 2013

Scott Harper
Norfolk - Scott Harper loved the people around him, and they clearly loved him. His zeal for life was endless. Scott died at his home Saturday at the age of 51 following a four-year fight with pancreatic cancer.
Much more than an award-winning journalist, Scott was an exceptional friend, dedicated family man, and respected colleague of many. He loved playing golf, meeting co-workers for happy hour at Cogan's, doing anything with his children, seeing movies at the Naro Cinema with his family and film club buddies, playing card games under the pavilion at the Mallory Country Club, texting friends incessantly, and watching, attending and betting on all kinds of sporting events with friends.
His relationships with people stretched all political and social tiers. He frequently had lively debates deep into the night while drinking wine on his front lawn or during Sunday afternoon NFL games. He listened often to favorite artists, such as Bob Marley, Dylan and Van Morrison, read everything written by Hemingway, Maugham, Virginia Woolf, and other great writers, and was known for quoting favorite lines from movies. Bill Murray's classic from Caddyshack, "So I got that going for me, which is nice" may have been the most repeated.
Scott also enjoyed playing board games with his family, walking his kids up to the neighborhood 7-Eleven for doughnuts every Saturday morning, going to concerts, and sitting by himself at the beach writing poetry. At Taylor Elementary School, he coordinated and taught the Junior Great Books program and served on the PTA board. He was a longtime board member of the West Ghent Civic League. At Saint Patrick Catholic School, he coached youth golf and basketball.
Scott was born in San Diego, Calif., on July 3, 1962. His family moved to Northbrook, Ill. when he was a toddler. They relocated to The Woodlands near Houston when he was a junior in high school. Besides golf he also played hockey, soccer and basketball while growing up.
He graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, with degrees in history and political science, and attended graduate school at the London School of Economics. His news-writing career began in 1985 at the Lewisville Daily Leader in the Dallas suburbs. It was there that he met his wife, Jane, who joined the reporting staff a few months after him. From there they moved on to The Capital newspaper in Annapolis, Md., where Scott was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1991 for a series of stories about sexual harassment at the U.S. Naval Academy. His work led to six congressional and naval investigations.
He and Jane left Annapolis in 1991 for jobs at The Houston Post, where Scott covered city hall and later the environment. He landed at The Virginian-Pilot in 1994 to become an environmental reporter, work that would earn the respect of conservationists throughout the Mid-Atlantic. He earned numerous awards from the Virginia Press Association and accolades from the Sierra Club, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, and the Back Bay Restoration Foundation and Friends of Back Bay.
Scott lived in a way that did not follow the traditional rules of how things were "supposed to be" done. For instance, once when he decided it was time to move on to another newspaper, instead of lining up a new job first, he quit and spent several weeks in Dallas enjoying the local restaurant scene and courting the woman who would become his wife. Since he was unemployed, she and other friends pitched in to pick up most of the tabs.
The many bets that he challenged friends to over the years went unpaid so often that they knew, after a while, that these were just gentlemen's wagers.
His fashion sense was, at best, "eccentric." A wardrobe staple was a corduroy sport coat with suede elbow patches that pre-dated his wife, his black beret and an array of "interesting" t-shirts (one with Hugo Chavez on the front was a favorite). More than once, he wore his tan bedroom slippers to neighborhood parties and to the mall.
Among Scott's most favored gifts were his Christmas cards, and again, he did them in his own way. Long after pre-printed sentiments and group form letters became holiday regulars, Scott mailed the family card along with a personal, hand-written recap of the previous year, highlighting things he and the recipient had done together or milestones from his life and the recipient's. The notes often came written on sheets torn out of a reporter's notebook.
Survived by Jane, his wife of 22 years, his son Jackson, 18, a freshman at Cornell University, daughter Natalie, 15, a sophomore at Maury High School, and son, Wesley, 13, an eighth-grader at Blair Middle School; his sister, Laura, of Washington, D.C., and his parents, Hugh and Susan, of Norfolk; along with several aunts, cousins, nieces and in-laws.
A wake service will be held at 6 p.m. Friday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, followed by a reception at the Larchmont home of George and Susan Nottingham. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, with a reception afterward in the church Commons. Friends will gather at Cogan's Pizza after the church reception. Funeral arrangements are being handled by H.D. Oliver Funeral Apartments' Norfolk Chapel.
The family suggests that memorial contributions be made to Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, 1500 Rosecrans Ave., Suite 200, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266, www.pancan.org; or to the Maury Foundation, which provides college scholarships to Maury High School graduating seniors, P.O. Box 6224, Norfolk, VA 23508, www.mauryfoundation.org. Condolences may be sent to the family at hdoliver.com. The family also wishes to thank all at Virginia Oncology who cared for Scott during his illness, and the many friends, family and coworkers who have provided such tremendous support these past few years.