WASHINGTON (AP) _ Former Senator Ted Stevens, who was killed Monday in a plane crash in his native Alaska, is being remembered as a friend of Christian radio.

National Religious Broadcasters President Frank Wright says Stevens was “a staunch defender of religious freedom” during his

40 years in the Senate.

NRB Vice President Bob Powers says that Stevens was a leader of the Senate committee that oversees broadcasting, and “would name Christian radio stations in Alaska with which he was intimately familiar.”

Wright says Stevens once told him that “his favorite radio station was the Christian station located in North Pole, Alaska.”

In 2006, Stevens received the NRB’s annual “Faith and Freedom Award.”