Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 26, 1990                   TAG: 9004250758
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: DENVER                                 LENGTH: Short

VETERAN CRIME REPORTER DIES AT 75

Gessing, a 44-year veteran of The Denver Post who began as a copy boy for The Associated Press, covered the police beat for The Post from 1943 until 1982.

"Harry was the dean of Denver's police quarters," said Gary Gerhardt, a police reporter for the competing Rocky Mountain News during the 1960s and 1970s.

"He was the last of the old-time leg men. He'd get the story and call the facts back to a rewrite man in the newsroom. He never wrote stories himself," said Gerhardt.

Gessing is survived by his wife of 48 years, Margaret Gorman Gessing, a daughter and two sons and eight grandchildren.