[1][5] At the 1963 Pan American Games in São Paulo, Brazil, she won the gold medal in the women's 100-meter backstroke.

[4] In August 1965, she demonstrated the Backstroke at the Badger Sports Club Water Carnival in Larchmont, New York, outside Mamaronek.

[8] A year later at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, Harmer swam for the gold medal-winning U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the women's 4×100-meter medley relay.

[12] Swimming with the District of Columbia Masters in her late twenties, she was a United States Masters All American swimmer with first place age group finishes in backstroke and medley events in both 1974 and 1975 and was nationally ranked with 16 top ten age group swims from 1974 to 1976.

[4] Her primary youth coach Mary Freeman Kelly Spitzer said that one of her greatest qualities, "was that even while she was very young, she maintained a balanced perspective on her activities and interests."