How the Army helped Steve Harris to become a prominent Johnson City figure

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL)—When you walk into Steve Harris’s office in his Johnson City home, you see everything that’s made up his full life.

“Us guys, we didn’t know if we were coming home or not,” Harris said emotionally.

You see mementos from his time as a barber, auctioneer, and real estate agent and also from his time in the Army.

“Before we left, North Korea decided to capture one of our ships called the Pueblo in Korea,” he said.

Harris was drafted in 1967 during the Vietnam War but spent most of his time serving in Korea.

“Part of the reason why I was there… I can’t get into detail,” he said. “But some of us were trained to go get the ship back. So that never did work out. And the powers felt it was too risky. For the troops to go in and make it back.”

Some of the operations he worked on are still classified today.

“It was a very tense time, to say the least, there,” he said. “It was difficult not letting family and friends know what I was doing there. We actually had a second job. It was a cover job. I was classified as a generator operator.”

Time in the Army set him up for success in helping to build Johnson City into what it is today.

“Part of what we did was we thought outside of the box. This was something that General Moore kind of created,” he said.

Thinking outside of the box turned him into one of the biggest real estate moguls in the region. He became the president of the Homebuilder’s Association and a Southern Living Representative.

“I’ve always [liked] to try to serve and give back, he said. “And my involvement in the realtors, I went from being a president to a state vice president and kind of moved up the ladder.”

Harris was also part of the planning commission that created the State of Franklin Road, negotiating with farmers and commercial property owners to develop the major four-lane that connects Johnson City.

“It was really interesting cause we did the first loop downtown behind WJHL, and then when we came to the second loop of it, [it] was at the university, and that’s what came from [University Parkway] onto the interstate. Of course, that was all open farmland and a lot of that farmland was owned by a couple of different individuals. It was really hard to negotiate that,” Harris said. “Everybody wanted to pull right off of their property and into the state of Franklin and the access roads that were there for all the nice commercial properties or something kind of new. We negotiated in and were able to make everybody happy. And you see it the way it is today. It is limited access only, you know, certain places you can get in, certain places you can get out. So traffic moves well because of it.”

While he has had a storied life, Agent Orange put Harris’s career and community involvement on hold.

“It was there to kill the vegetation and they sprayed Agent Orange,” said Hariss. “In Korea, it wasn’t done with helicopters; it was done with individuals; South Korean soldiers backpacked this stuff and sprayed. A lot of operations that we were doing were in the [demilitarized zone] really doing all the spraying. So, you know, I got linked to it and it’ll destroy you.”

He’s had prostate cancer, skin disease, diabetes and a plethora of other issues from it.

“I’m still lucky to be here,” he said.

Harris also earned a black belt in taekwondo during his service. Those items are framed and hanging in his office.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather.