Wayne R. “Buckshot” Harman, the former Baltimore County Recreation and Parks director who was also a longtime schools administrator, died of vascular disease June 18 at Stella Maris Hospice. The Timonium resident was 89.
Born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, and raised in Hampstead in Carroll County, he was the son of Samuel Ridgely Harman, a carpenter, and Mary Francis, who ran the household. He was a graduate of Hampstead High School. He played softball, soccer and basketball.
He met his future wife, Lou Ann Resh, in the first grade and at Sunday School at the St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Hampstead. They married in 1956 at the same church.
Mr. Harman earned a degree at what was then the State Teachers College at Towson, now Towson University, where he was a member of an All-American soccer team. He was later named to the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame.
He began teaching in the Baltimore County Public Schools. He taught at Hampton Elementary School and was assistant principal at Merritt Point Elementary. He was principal at Oakleigh Elementary and Owings Mills High School.
His final post was director of elementary education. A Republican and ally of former Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden, he then served as director of the county Recreation and Parks.
A 1994 article in The Baltimore Sun detailed how the state and county had completed an acquisition of the 367 acres for the Cromwell Valley Park with a purchase of the 45-acre Good Fellowship Farm for $2.6 million. .