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Speaking, and listening

Our inspirational spot for the week:

The essential part of speaking with God is to be still long enough to listen.

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Challenges

This week, we ask you to pray for us.

Since the first of the year, donations to organizations like KNOM have declined about 9 percent. KNOM’s donated income has taken a similar downturn. We have cut expenses to the bone and are looking for community partners and non-traditional ways to keep KNOM on the air.

One non-traditional way is to donate unused gift cards. There are billions of dollars of gift cards that are sitting in drawers and on shelves throughout the United States.

Supporters can send KNOM unused gift cards: we’ll use them, convert them to cash (at a discount), or trade for cards we can use for supplies and equipment.

You’ll find more information about giving to KNOM with gift cards here.

Thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and support as we work to meet this funding challenge.

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May ’98: A parade, and a (very) cold swim, for Memorial Day

May 25, 1998

As it has for 22 years, KNOM provides live coverage of the solemn Memorial Day parade, which winds from Nome’s Front Street to graveside observances at the town cemetery and a brief ceremony at Nome’s harbor. Paul Korchin and Ross Tozzi anchor the broadcast.

Later in the day, KNOM brings listeners to Nome’s East End Beach, where fifty hardy individuals dodge boulder-sized chunks of ice at the surf’s edge in the traditional Memorial Day Swim. The water temperature is only 34° F, and the air is 36°.

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Rank

Our inspirational spot for the week:

Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.

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Prayers for Ezio, and the latest with our volunteers

We ask for prayers for Ezio Tozzi, father of KNOM board president Father Ross Tozzi, and the entire Tozzi family. May God richly bless and guide them. Thank you.

All five KNOM volunteers are busy writing, producing and voicing exceptional radio programming.

Eva DeLappe visited Nome’s Quyanna Care Center to cover the opening of the facility, including interviews with elders and caring staff.

Dayneé Rosales just returned from a village trip to Diomede Island with reports and pictures of her trip.

Margaret DeMaioribus has been covering critical organizational meetings and presentations.

Lucus Keppel has been working with local voice talent, producing inspirational spots.

And Josh Cunningham has been cataloguing and recording music for the KNOM library. (He also brightens our day with his charm and wonderful sense of humor.)

We are so blessed! We thank everyone who makes their work possible.

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May 1998: Plane crash near Nome

May 14, 1998

A Cessna Caravan airplane with ten people aboard crashes on a hilltop three miles north of Nome in near zero visibility.

KNOM broadcasts frequent live reports from search and rescue headquarters and from the scene as rescuers battle heavy snow and fog looking for the aircraft.

This is one of many crashes covered by KNOM over the years. It’s unique, however, in that the passengers (all of whom survive with minor injuries) follow the progress of their own search efforts by listening to a portable radio tuned to KNOM.

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Truth

Our inspirational spot for the week:

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
– Mark Twain

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Breakup, mail delays, and Communicator Awards

Melting ice under "breakup boots," Nome, Alaska

Melting ice under “breakup boots,” Nome, Alaska. Photo by Laura Davis Collins.

All across Western Alaska, it’s the season known as “breakup”: the slow, on-again/off-again period of melting that signals the gradual approach of summer. Some days are bright and sunny, and others are cloudy and snowy. The sun melts ice on rooftops as the tundra gives up its blanket of white snow, little by little. Spring is here, mud and large puddles reign supreme in our streets, and birds of all kinds are returning to their summer homes.

There have been mail delays at the local post office, so we haven’t been able to thank our supporters as quickly as we would like. Nome is at the end of the mail trail, and it sometimes takes an extra two to three weeks or more to receive envelopes and packages from supporters in the Lower 48. Everything takes longer here at the edge of the Bering Sea.

Finally, we’ve just received word that the KNOM volunteers have been awarded four Communicator Awards for excellence in radio programming! They will soon be adding three silver statues, and one gold, to the KNOM trophy case.

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May ’72: A film crew hits Nome

May 5, 1972:

KNOM is helping a Walt Disney production unit this month with filming of the feature-length Tundra Summer, starring two Nome third grade children. The movie is released with the title Two Against the Arctic, featuring a trained polar bear from Seattle named Igloo.

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Steering wheel

Our inspirational spot for the week:

God should be our steering wheel, not our spare tire.

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