Who is Rey Barry of Charlottesville VA?

Answer 1

He's the creator and director of the Freeware Hall of Fame. He is the force behind "Puckish Tendencies," a creative on-line emporium. He is a "mostly-retired political consultant, real estate broker, journalist, educator, and buyer & seller of rare recordings as Records For Recollectors since 1963."

A one-time "career undergraduate" at the Univ. of Virginia in Charlottesville, Rey, a former Mensan, completed majors in Sociology, Psychology, and Philosophy. While a student, he assisted in the creation of the university's FM station, WTJU, and was the first chief announcer.

In later undergraduate years Rey worked full time as a staff announcer and jazz DJ from 1957-61 at commercial AM stations WCHV and WELK.

One October night in 1959 while broadcasting a high school football game, Rey learned of a commercial aircraft lost outside town hours before Piedmont Airlines acknowledged a plane was missing.

As a volunteer newsman for a radio station with no news department (but carried ABC and Mutual, two of the nation's 4 news networks,) Rey covered the story for an entire weekend, much of the time in a military search helicopter. The wreckage wasn't found for 36 hours and, in a remarkable instance of newsman beginner's luck, Rey was the first person to arrive at the scene, and the first to interview the sole survivor.

Through family connections, his older brother and he shared the only hand-written permanent pass ever issued to the NYC jazz club Birdland. (The club's Gold Cards came later.)

In that time of Jim Crow laws before passage of the Civil Rights Act, Rey served as the liaison between visiting jazz musicians and the Charlottesville restaurants where segregation was the rule.

Later he was a reporter and columnist for The Daily Progress newspaper from 1966-71. He had the assignment to cover UVa for its home town paper and the Associated Press during one of the most shattering periods in the school's history.

He covered (1) the student/faculty protests over the Vietnam War, (2) the court-ordered racial integration of the all-white institution, and (3) the court-ordered gender integration of the all-male undergraduate college.

He also had a run-in with US Attorney General Ramsey Clark when, on a slow Friday night, the Associated Press ran Rey's story quoting Clark making an indiscreet comment about the JFK assassination. It was Saturday front page news across the country.

Rey earned 15 minutes of fame and a smidgen of immortality in the conspiracy community. Because he stood up to the Attorney General and his denials, he got an offer from the most evil newspaper owner in the nation to be an investigative reporter for the Manchester, New Hampshire, Union Leader. He turned it down.

Later Rey was an undistinguished stringer for TIME, Reuters, and Newsweek. He also had a 15-year sinecure as part-time Special Projects TV Producer at the Univ. of Virginia. His only memorable program was a one-on-one interview with Hollywood legend Frank Capra. C'est la vie, the one hour interview is on a tape medium no longer playable.

In 1970 Virginia Murray Leonard of Frankfort, Ky, married Rey at the university's Rotunda, a building designed by Thomas Jefferson and now a National Historic Landmark. It's on the Internet with a 24/7 web cam. It is the only wedding known to have taken place in the building. Two beautiful daughters and a beautiful grand-daughter resulted.

Beginning in the early 80s Rey started collecting and distributing freeware and shareware. The effort was begun to help fellow real estate brokers learn to use computers. He established the Freeware Hall of Fame (Service Marked) and began world-wide software distribution by mail in 1985, then via dial-up computer bulletin boards.

The first board to carry the FHOF freeware library was Bobby Sumrada's Cheers! in Memphis. Scott Johnson's CAVU (Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited) in Charlottesville took over when Cheers! closed.

In 1995 Rey published "Guide to Free Software," a compendium of 1700 free programs in 105 categories. The book honored by name the great freeware writers of the DOS era. It earned raves in 4 magazines and was sold by mail order and at Virginia computer fairs.