Remote Broadcast

Spring came to interior Alaska with a crash, a splash and $108,000. As in 28 previous years, last week's icebreak on the Tanana (rhymes with Anna gnaw) River was big news. To the lucky sourdough or trapper who guessed the day, hour and nearest minute the ice went out would go a record $108,000. And like other big news, Alaskans knew they would hear it first from Fairbanks radio station KFAR, whose special events crew was camped at Nenana (rhymes with keen Anna), 150 miles south of the Arctic circle.

Announcer Ed Stevens hooked his mike to a portable transmitter and walked to the river's edge. Then he began his floe-by-floe report. Wet snow had been melting as it fell and, about midafternoon, sun stabbed through the overcast. Behind Stevens' voice, listeners heard the babble of some 250 sourdoughs and Indians excitedly looking for signs of the breakup. Suddenly, like a carrier flight deck in heavy seas, the great mass of ice heaved and fell. A finger of water slithered across the ice and a moment later jagged, crashing floes crunched downstream. No radio audience had ever before heard anything like it. KFAR in its first coverage of the icebreak had scored again.

Since 1939, when pioneer Alaskan capitalist Austin Eugene ("Cap") Lathrop organized his Midnight Sun Broadcasting Co. (TIME, June 12, 1939), KFAR has done one of radio's outstanding jobs. To remote Alaska, it has brought news from the outside, glamorized news from the inside. It has also presented one of the best entertainment schedules heard on the continent. By using commercial-free Armed Forces Radio Service records, KFAR offers the pick of U.S. fare without plug-uglies. Its record library gives Alaskans the music they like best: symphonies and operatic arias. Most popular non-musical program: Tundra Topics, full of each day's sourdough gossip (who is prospecting where, conditions on Woodchopper Creek, etc.).

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