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Marc Giauque reportingThis weekend marks a milestone for the longest running network program in broadcast history. Sunday, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir will celebrate its 4,000th broadcast, marking nearly 77 years since the first broadcast.
"From the crossroads of the west, we welcome you to Temple Square in Salt Lake City...."
That was 1929: The first broadcast on the radio station that eventually became KSL. At the time, no one may have known the program would be one of the few constants through decades of change.
Choir President Mac Christensen has fond feelings for those early choir members.
Mac Christensen: "You can't help but feel the history. It is there. You see just in the short time I've been there all of the different things that have happened....not only to the choir but to the country."
"We ask not for an undeserved immunity from the sorrows of our generation but only for faith to endure and strength to surmount all things for this too shall pass. And in times to come, there shall yet be another Christmas with peace."
an assassination in 1963.
"With a sorrowing America we join this day in mourning the passing of the president."
and an attack in 2001.
"Lady Liberty may be surrounded by ashes but she still stands."
Mac Christensen "It's been faithful through all these years, it's been a friend you can depend upon and people turn to it in good times and bad times the choir has been there."
Music Director Craig Jessop says there's a reason for the broadcasts success.
Craig Jessop "The broadcast is about goodness, inspiration, love, beauty and those are the things we seek after."
"Again we leave you from within the shadows of the everlasting hills...."
