For anyone who has followed the Boothbay Harbor town government in the past 20 years, Palmer Payne is a familiar sight and perhaps an even more familiar sound. The 86-year-old Payne is a retired news anchor who still retains the booming, low-register timbre of a voice that carried him from small, low-watt New England radio stations to the anchor desk of WCBS in New York City. Not only a veteran of the heyday of news radio, Payne is a Korean War veteran who carries on the mission to serve through his efforts with the Veterans Administration and American Legion.

Born in Cincinnati,Ohio in 1930, Payne had a peripatetic childhood, moving frequently as his father, a college professor, took a string of jobs from Chicago to eventually Marblehead, Massachusetts at the onset of World War II. A gifted student who would attend Boston University, Payne joined the Army in 1948 because he figured he would be drafted regardless.

“I wanted to get it out of the way. When I came back from Korea I was a 22-year-old freshman and the 18-year-olds were being drafted. Granted, I was an old 22, having experienced what I did,” he said.

He was first sent to work for the Armed Forces Radio in Japan where the geography of Hokkaido reminded him of the east coast of America, snow and all. 

“It's very similar although I don't think there are any moose in Japan,” he said.

After the Korean War broke out, Payne volunteered to be in the 187th Army Airborne where he endured six weeks of training at Fort Bragg, Georgia — five jumps and you're considered qualified, he explained.

“The practice jumps were off a vertically mounted oil drum into a sand pit on a Tuesday,” said Payne. “On Wednesday I did my first jump out of an airplane and then on Friday I jumped 18 miles behind enemy lines in North Korea. They were quick.”

He landed in P'anmunjom, future site of the Korean peace talks and famous for its apple orchards, a fact he discovered firsthand after his parachute became snagged on an apple tree as enemy forces drew near.

“They say the beauty of being surrounded is always knowing where the enemy is,” he said.

He considers the Korean War a “silent conflict” because America was in a post-World War II honeymoon.

“Things were better, the troops were home and people didn't want to admit we were in a war,” he said. “However, 50 years later we still have 35,000 troops in Korea with a madman in the north (Kim Jung Ill) who has a huge collection of pornography and his finger on a nuclear bomb. That's pretty frightening.”

While the Korean War has been largely overlooked by history, Payne was especially puzzled at the treatment of soldiers returning from Vietnam.

“They were spat upon and the irony is the soldiers didn't want to be there in the first place,” he said.

After completing four more jumps, he resumed his post with the Armed Forces Radio until leaving the Army for good in 1952. With a degree in hand, he launched his radio career in Concord, New Hampshire, where he was paid $40 for a six-day work week.

“At the end of the summer I got a promotion to $42.50,” said Payne. ‘Your pay was commensurate with the size of the town back then.”

After stints in Burlington, Vermont, and Keene, New Hampshire, Payne landed in Boston and hosted a talk show for a station that eventually became WRKO.

“The format was different from what you'd see today. I was more of a moderator than a see-all, know-all,” he explained.

His guests included Malcolm X and Norman Thomas, an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. While the show was topical, it also could be whimsical; before Christmas, a jeweler would come on the air to give men advice on what to buy women.

“The phones would melt! In another segment, we would allow anyone to call a friend across the country for exactly three minutes and let the entire Boston audience listen.”

In the 1950s, there was a sharp division between the pencil press (newspapers) and radio news.

“They looked down on us for carrying tape recorders. Of course, when the turmoil of the 1960s rolled around, they realized it might be a good idea to have it all on tape,” said Payne.

After the station switched to a top 40 format in 1966, Payne headed to New York City and was hired on the spot at CBS, known as the Tiffany Network for its commitment to high quality journalism, and home of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, who went on to become a sailing buddy of Payne's in Greenwich, Connecticut. Payne later took a similar position at ABC, freelanced for public television, and was an adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University. By the time he retired in 1992, he had borne witness to a sea change in news reporting, a change not always for the better.

“News has become a pro-am event,” he said. “Newspapers are asking for pictures and not sending crews out anymore.”

Payne moved to Boothbay Harbor in 1994 because it reminded him of Marblehead before it became a “yuppie extension of metro Boston.” His only son still lives in Marblehead where he teaches marine engineering. Payne has embraced the Boothbay region and been an active participant in town government by serving on the board of appeals, refuse district, budget committee and as a selectman. In March, he was the recipient of the “Spirit of America” volunteer award from the town of Boothbay Harbor. For the past 20 years, Payne has helped families navigate the complexities of the VA healthcare system. The well-traveled Payne said he considers Maine to be the most patriotic place he has ever lived and feels like home.

“You can drive anywhere and see the American flag, people are extremely proud of their veterans here,” said Payne. “I think especially around Memorial Day it matters; people who care to remember so others don’t forget.”