Chukars Corner

Jim Garchow in his home before the 2008 Emotion Bowl.

Longtime broadcaster Jim Garchow passed away at approximately 4:45 a.m. Sunday in his home. He was 72.

Garchow, who has called minor league baseball with the same club longer than any other broadcaster in America, succumbed to acute leukemia, the Garchow family said in a news release Sunday afternoon.

“We appreciate the thoughts and prayers as Dad bravely faced the challenges of illness this year,” the Garchow family said in the release. “He was so happy to have completed his 39th season broadcasting the Chukars games on Labor Day. We will miss him everyday.”

KUPI broadcast partner John Balginy said Garchow listened to his grandson, Michael Berger, lead Skyline to an upset of Hillcrest on Friday night.

“He was alert the whole night,” Balginy said. “Then after I signed off, he went downhill.”

Garchow battled numerous health issues over the past year that forced him to leave his role as the voice of Skyline football and basketball. The last high school football game he broadcasted was Sept. 5, 2008.

Poor circulation in his legs forced him from the booth and into the hospital, where he spent three of six months during the winter and spring. Eventually, doctors amputated his right leg eight inches below his right knee.

A bout with pneumonia kept him in the hospital until June 15. But come June 23, he was back in the broadcast booth barring his name at Melaleuca Field, ready for his 39th season of professional baseball.

He started broadcasting baseball in Idaho Falls in 1970 with the Idaho Falls Angels.

Garchow was restricted a wheel chair and oxygen tanks as the season began and then improved enough to switch to a walker. But his health deteriorated as the season went on.

In addition to his broadcast duties at KUPI, Garchow served as the station’s general manager for 37 years.

Garchow was kind enough to share his vast knowledge of Skyline and the Emotion Bowl with the Post Register over the years. To hear his voice again one last time, check out our audio slideshow for last year’s Emotion Bowl as Garchow provides the narration. Or you can read some of the classic Emotion Bowl stories he told me that day (live tigers, gastrointestinal pranks and crowd-control failure) that makes the Emotion Bowl what it is.

Note: Garchow’s name has appeared for years as Garshow because he wanted to helped people pronounce his last name (Gar-SHOW).