Valerie Bradt Hymes
TV and radio reporter who witnessed assassination attempt of George Wallace in Laurel Shopping Center parking lot in 1972
Valerie Bradt Hymes, a WJZ-TV news reporter who covered the assassination attempt of presidential candidate George Wallace and Maryland’s 1970s political corruption trials, died of circulation and coronary problems Aug. 16 at Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center. The Severna Park resident was 91.
Mrs. Hymes witnessed the shooting of segregationist presidential candidate and Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1972 in the Laurel Shopping Center parking lot. She reported the event for area radio stations.
“Val will always be remembered for her coverage at the Wallace shooting,” Ron Matz, a former WJZ reporter who was present that day for radio station WFBR, said. “We didn’t have the technology we have today and Val got her story and her live feed wound up being nationally broadcast.”
Born in Colfax, Washington, she was the daughter of Wilber E. Bradt, a chemistry professor and World War II Army officer, and Norma Sparlin Bradt, a pianist and writer.
As a young woman, she lived in New York City and earned a degree at Columbia University.
She was a teen columnist for the old Globe Syndicate, a chain of eight newspapers, then went to work at Columbia’s Alumni News.
Her son Scott Hymes said his mother met her future husband, Donald L. Hymes at Columbia.
“The day she met him she said, ‘He’s the man I’m going to marry.’ ”
Her husband joined the Navy and was stationed at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River. She took a job as a reporter for The Enterprise newspaper in St. Mary’s County.
Working with her husband, they reported on political corruption and inside deals involving land acquisition and slot machines.
“There were bomb threats made against my parents,” her son said.
She went on to report for The Washington Post and later to write a weekly column, “The State of Things,” with her husband about Maryland politics.
Mrs. Hymes also worked as a freelance radio reporter for WTOP in Chevy Chase and the old WANN in Annapolis.
She was on assignment May 15, 1972, at Laurel Shopping Center. She heard shots fired by Arthur Herman Bremer, a 21-yearold busser and janitor as Gov. Wallace greeted well-wishers in the parking lot.
“I thought at first he was dead,” she told The New York Times in 1972. Wallace’s wife, Cornelia, ran to his side, she said.
“The Secret Service pulled her from him and dragged her away in a scene reminiscent of Jackie Kennedy being pulled away from the dying body of President [John F.] Kennedy,” Mrs. Hymes told the paper.
Mrs. Hymes “was near Wallace and Bremmer, and got blood on her dress,” said her son, Scott. “Her backup workspace was a phone booth in a Zayre discount store. She unscrewed the speaker cup off a phone receiver and attached alligator clips to reach the radio station.”
She won a National Award from the Society of Professional Journalists (Sigma Delta Chi) for the assassination coverage that was broadcast on WTOP and the national CBS feed.
Mrs. Hymes later worked for WJZ-TV, reported from Annapolis and covered the General Assembly. She also covered Maryland’s political scandals of the 1970s, including those of Vice President Spiro Agnew and Gov. Marvin Mandel.
“Val joined us when the WJZ-TV staff was much less than 10 people,” Frank Luber, a former WJZ reporter and veteran radio host, said. “She was very professional.”
She left Annapolis for Washington to become bureau chief for Westinghouse Broadcasting, covering stories for stations in Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston.
In the early 1980s she joined CNN in Washington.
“Val was tenacious, tough and a pioneer woman in the news business,” Mr. Matz said. “She did it all and she did it well. She set an example for her colleagues.”
She left Washington in the mid-1980s and continued to write features for the Capital Gazette in Annapolis.
She also reported on criminal justice for Prison Ministry Network News, Maryland Church News, Bay Times, Episcopal News Service and Episcopal Life.
Nearly 20 years ago she became the director of the Maryland Episcopal Diocesan Prison Ministry Task Force and worked as an advocate for prisoners serving life sentences.
“She worked for prison reform, reentry programs, a peace initiative for gangs and for repeal of the death penalty,” her son said.
She helped found Camp Amazing Grace at the Bishop Claggett Center in Adamstown, an Episcopal ministry for children of Maryland prisoners.
“She believed you must do something for the children of the prisoners or a high percentage of them will someday be incarcerated,” her son said.
Mrs. Hymes studied voice and piano as a student, and choral singing became her lifelong passion. She was a founder of the annual Messiah singalongs at St. James Episcopal Parish in Lothian and sang with the Singers Madrigal in Annapolis.
Survivors include her husband of 69 years, Donald Hymes; three sons, Dale Hymes of San Jose, California, Scott Hymes of Severna Park, and Gary Hymes of Amsterdam; a brother, Hale V. Bradt of Peabody, Massachusetts; two sisters, Abigail Campi of Delray Beach, Florida, and Dale Anne Bourjaily of Santpoort-Noord, Netherlands; and two stepgrandsons.
Services were Sept. 8.