KHAR is a commercial sports radio station in Anchorage, Alaska, broadcasting on 590 AM. The station features programming from the CBS Sports Radio network.
KHAR went on the air in 1961. The station was founded by Willis "Bill" Harpel, who previously worked at KFQD and owned stations in Washington state. Harpel founded Sourdough Broadcasters, and would launch KHAR-FM (now KBRJ) and KHAR-TV (now KYUR) prior to his accidental death in January 1968. His family, particularly widow Patricia and son Craig, would continue to run Sourdough Broadcasters for many more decades.
During its earlier decades, KHAR, like many AM stations, aired a general format, including music and news. Notable aspects of early programming included broadcasting messages to Bush residents, a practice once fairly common amongst urban broadcasters in Alaska, but found on very few stations today. The station was also noted for carrying the commentaries of Ruben Gaines, a onetime poet laureate of Alaska known for creating the character "Chilkoot Charlie".
I'm gonna tell you a well known story
A sacrifice of innocents
24 days of agony
How a last dive, gave them no chance
Somewhere in the arctic, the Russians were telling a
Forgotten by the world
In the rescue chamber, flooded with water
A.D. had to die
Hell awaits the enemy, somewhere in the Barents sea
The system is failing
Hell awaits the enemy, victim of hypocrisy
The system is lying
They will never come back home again
And I've lost another friend
They will never come back home
They are the victims of a vicious game
Commanders of the Russian fleet
Decided to conceal the truth
Somewhere down in the deep
The wreck revealed, they could have saved you
In a grave of steel, the truth was so real
Locked in the shell, their own private hell
One day we all will know why
Hell awaits the enemy, somewhere in the Barents sea
The system is failing
Hell awaits the enemy, victim of hypocrisy
The system is lying
They will never come back home again
And I've lost another friend
They will never come back home
They are the victims of a vicious game...
They will never come back home again