The “KNOM Marching Band” captures second place in Nome’s Midnight Sun Festival parade, organized by Mary Yanikoski.

In pouring rain, a group of kids walk down Front Street, wearing KNOM 10th anniversary T-shirts. Each child carries a portable radio blaring the KNOM signal, which is playing march music over the air.

It’s an idea borrowed from former KNOM volunteer Peter Van Nort of KIAK in Fairbanks, who dreamed up the stunt the previous year for KIAK’s entry in that town’s Golden Days parade.

Provideniya, Chukotka, Russia.

June 13, 1988

KNOM volunteer Claire Richardson is Alaska’s pool radio reporter on a precedent-setting trip to Provideniya, USSR, traveling on the historic Alaska Airlines 737 “Friendship Flight.”

Her live reports of Provideniya’s festivities and the reunion of Eskimo families are carried by more than a dozen radio stations throughout the state.

Chief engineer Timothy Cochran and general manager Tom Busch extend the 120 ground wires at the AM transmitter site to 320 feet, 1/4 wavelength at KNOM’s frequency. Because of a shipping error back in 1971, the ground wires had been a hundred feet short for 16 years, but the money is finally in place to correct that.

In addition, Tom and Timothy add 240 new radials to improve transmission.

Meanwhile, Nome receives a visit from Gaithersburg, Maryland consulting engineer John Mullaney, who serves KNOM at no charge. John works with tower climber Rod Ewing to adjust KNOM’s folded unipole antenna for maximum signal strength.

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°.

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.

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.

During National Nurse Week, Norton Sound Health Corporation honors three nurses.

They are: Terry Romenesko, RN; Annie Blandford, RN; and Linda Peters, RN, all of whom came to Nome as KNOM support nurses. Each has dedicated more than twenty years of care to patients at the Nome hospital.

The last week of the month brings multiple days of a rip-roaring blizzard to Nome, and KNOMers run outside every hour to clear the station’s satellite dish of snow, which blocks signals.

In the dead of winter, snow does not cause this problem, as it is too dry to stick to the antennas.

This month’s issue of Catholic Digest features a 6-page article on KNOM, condensed from a piece in January’s St. Anthony Messenger.  The magazine titles the article “Best Little Radio Station in America?”