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

DATE: TUESDAY, June 22, 1993                   TAG: 9306220122
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BONNIE V. WINSTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

LEADING PUNCH IN PENSION BATTLE CAME FROM ONE BORN TO FIGHT

"I've got his fighting spirit, loud voice and his glasses," Harper says. "I'm always fighting unjust laws."

The 72-year-old retired veterinarian and federal bureaucrat from Arlington was the lead plaintiff in the federal retirees' tax lawsuit decided Friday by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Until 1989, the state taxed the pensions of federal retirees but not those of retired state employees. The former federal workers want millions of dollars in refunds.

"What's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong," Harper said. "There should be justice in the land."

Because Harper was president of the Virginia federation of the National Association of Retired Federal Employees, his name led the list of 400 federal pensioners suing the Virginia Department of Taxation. As such, the suit will go into lawbooks as the "Harper case."

"That kind of makes me feel good," Harper said in a recent interview.

An avid golfer, Harper has now turned his attention to the links, figuring he has "done my bit for the state and the nation."

In addition to piercing the state's tax laws, Harper drafted the employees' association's successful action plan to block the federal catastrophic-illness insurance from going into effect in 1987.

It was too costly, Harper said. Retirees on limited budgets were expected to fork over too much, he said.

Harper said the network of friends What's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong. There should be justice in the land. Henry W. Harper III Lead plaintiff in suit and the skills he built during his working years has proved advantageous in the battles during his retirement.

Harper, whose father and grandfather were physicians, gave up his veterinary career after putting in 16-hour, seven-day workweeks for five years. He "retired" to a 40-hour-a-week job as a meat inspector for the U.S. Agriculture Department. He later moved into a division of the department that produced vaccines for animals.

Ambitious and with a penchant for managing, Harper climbed the bureaucratic ladder in Fort Worth, Texas, and later in Omaha, Neb. He moved to Northern Virginia in 1962, becoming chief staff officer for planning and analysis in the Agriculture Department's meat-inspection division in Washington.

He retired in 1984 and got involved with the retired employees' association. Discovering Virginia's unequal treatment of federal and state pensioners, Harper monitored court challenges to similar laws in Michigan and Georgia. He was ready to sue in Virginia just months after the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Michigan case in March 1989.

While Friday's ruling left Virginia's federal retirees with another battle to fight, Harper had said before the decision that the substance of the ruling would not determine the success of his effort.

"Whatever they say, I've had my hearing. That's all I wanted," he said.