Los Angeles-area radio personality and producer Mitchell Harding died of natural causes on 9 November 2007. Born E. Loring Ware on 14 July 1928, in Illinois, he was a co-creator of the long-running science fiction radio program Hour 25 (now known as Mike Hodel’s Hour 25). On the show, Harding interviewed many big-name authors, and he was known as John Henry Thong, a name that reflected his love of humor, said his son, Julian Ware.
The radio program debuted on non-commerical KPFK 90.7 FM in 1973, originally hosted by Mike Hodel. With Hodel’s death in 1986, Harlan Ellison took over the hosting duties and renamed the program in Hodel’s honor. Ellison in turn passed the reins on to J. Michael Straczynski. In 1990, it became a round-robin effort, with different hosts each week. In 2000, it left the radio waves for life as an internet audio-on-demand radio program, which it still is today.
In addition to his work on Hour 25, Harding read the news on-air at KCRW 89.9 FM and worked behind the scenes on many programs. In the 1980s, Harding and station manager Ruth Hirschman (now Ruth Seymour) read the New York Times on the air each day at noon, according to Publicity Director Sarah Spitz, who talked with the Los Angeles Time regarding Harding. In the 1980s, the L.A. Time, notes, “same-day editions of the New York Times were hard to find in L.A.”
Harding was also an announcer doing station identifications during the National Public Radio All Things Considered broadcasts, and was the producer of the The Health Connection featuring Dr. Gershon Lesser. Harding and Lesser became friends, and Harding was “a great source of ideas, when I ran dry,” Lesser said. “His heroes were Thomas Jefferson, the Dalai Lama, Studs Terkel, Paul Robeson, Malcolm X and the ancient Greeks. He would often quote from the ancient Greeks.” In 2006, Lesser and Harding published Healing and Spirit: Medicine, Politics, Civilization and the Making of an Extraordinary Physician.
Harding worked at KCRW from the mid-1970s until he retied in 1994.
Harding is survived by his son and his brother, Don Ware, of North Carolina.