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.

With your support, the KNOM Radio Mission has been a presence in Western Alaska’s communities for more than four decades – and not always just through the airwaves. We’re so thrilled when our outstanding, full-time volunteers serve our region even beyond KNOM’s studio walls; news reporter Margaret DeMaioribus is one such volunteer.

Margaret, who hails from eastern Pennsylvania, has been a frequent presence in many service contexts within the Nome community: in particular, within St. Joseph Catholic Church. At St. Joseph’s, Margaret is a cantor at weekly Sunday Mass and also teaches religious education classes. In Nome, filling both of these positions can be difficult; willing and able musicians and volunteer teachers are both in short supply.

In addition to her work at St. Joseph’s (from which KNOM broadcasts weekly Sunday Mass to its rural Alaska listeners), Margaret also regularly volunteers at Nome’s local homeless shelter, serving dinners to the needy.

Thank you for making possible the service of all of our wonderful volunteers. Through your generosity, KNOM volunteers continue to endeavor to improve life in rural Alaska – even when the microphone is off.

This article is part of the May 2013 edition of our newsletter, The Nome Static.

• Read more articles from this issue
• Download the entire issue as a color PDF file.

Volunteer Josh Cunningham recently took a very special trip as a correspondent for KNOM.

Josh went to the southwestern Alaska city of Bethel for the Cama-i (chuh-MY) Dance Festival, one of the largest and most significant annual cultural celebrations in the state. KNOM regularly sends its full-time volunteers to cover important regional and local events – these “village trips” are a staple of our program – although as Josh describes, his latest travel was unique:

Firstly, to call the experience a “village trip” isn’t entirely correct. After all, the population of Bethel, Alaska is more than double that of Nome. You’ll find within its borders a nationally known chain restaurant, paved roads, and even a stoplight intersection. Like a “normal” KNOM village trip, however, I was there for a very important mission: to collect Native drum and dance music from the annual Cama-i Festival.

Native Alaskan music is a very important part of KNOM’s daily programming. On my afternoon show alone, you can hear several Native songs from communities in our region, like Hooper Bay, St. Lawrence Island, and Unalakleet. I feel it is so important to feature Native songs in this way; at the end of the day, I hope a very special message comes across with these songs. I want people to know how important this music is, how much life and knowledge they hold.

Through your support, special trips like Josh’s continue to touch the lives both of our listeners and of our staff. Thank you for making them possible! (Photo: dancers at the 2013 Cama-i Festival.)

This article is part of the May 2013 edition of our newsletter, The Nome Static.

• Read more articles from this issue
• Download the entire issue as a color PDF file.

Travel by KNOM volunteers to the communities we serve has long been an essential part of our mission; thanks to the sponsorship of a regional air carrier, our flights to these communities are usually free.

The photos above offer a glimpse into a special trip five years ago, when volunteer Danielle Sylvester ventured to Wales, Alaska to report on a music festival. Her travels allowed her to meet respected elder Patrick Omiak, Sr. and to witness the sea arrival of the festival’s performers, who braved choppy waters in small boats to attend the celebration.

This article is part of the May 2013 edition of our newsletter, The Nome Static.

• Read more articles from this issue
• Download the entire issue as a color PDF file.

Work on our studio expansion project – the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios – has reached an important milestone! Thanks to your continued support, our dedicated construction crew has been able to complete the outside “box” of our annex: its floor, walls, and a sturdy, insulated roof, all of which can be seen, inside and out, in the photos above.

Our studio renovation, as you may know, will convert KNOM’s broadcasting tools from its aging, analog equipment to all-digital hardware, which will be far less expensive and complicated to operate, repair, and maintain. The new construction will be essential to our mission’s continued operations for many years to come.

Now that the outside of our new studio space is close to completion, the more complex work of installing our digital hardware – and raising the funds for this crucially-needed gear – lies ahead. As we go to press, our digital studio funds stand at $487,946.19; it’s enough to pay for the empty building with about $14,000 left over to go toward equipment, which we estimate will cost $358,430. To learn more or to help, visit our Digital Studios page or call 907-443-5221.

This article is part of the May 2013 edition of our newsletter, The Nome Static.

• Read more articles from this issue
• Download the entire issue as a color PDF file.

We continue to be amazed – both by the challenges that life in rural Alaska presents, and by the goodwill and hard work that those challenges bring forth from those within our KNOM family. This month, we conclude with the reflections of our volunteer engineer Rolland Trowbridge.

A year ago, I received a call from KNOM’s general manager, Ric Schmidt, asking if I knew anything about automatic generator controls. Little did I know that that call would be a call to mission – and a call that would change my life.

I came to Nome on my family’s sailboat in 2009 after sailing over Canada through the Northwest Passage. We started in Michigan after ten years of preparation to take an epic trip with no clue where we would end up… After completing the passage, a storm ripped away our life raft, and we put into Nome to make repairs… Soon, we settled in and made Nome home.

I signed on for a year, and what a year. Every day, Nome’s environment does its worst… with extreme elements trying to tear apart everything that exists. Fortunately, KNOM has decades of experience in dealing with this. It is a true pleasure to work on something that has been built and designed to handle the environment it is in… I think I will be staying a while.

There has been a razor-sharp focus at KNOM for more than 40 years to build and maintain a reliable, low-cost-to-maintain station. I am proud to be part of it.

In the coming months, look for more from Rolland in a new segment for the Static: an Engineer’s Corner, with updates on KNOM’s equipment. Photos: Rolland, a sled dog musher, with one of his dogs; Rolland and family aboard their sailboat, the Precipice.

Again, you can read more of Rolland’s incredible story here.

This article is part of the May 2013 edition of our newsletter, The Nome Static.

• Read more articles from this issue
• Download the entire issue as a color PDF file.

Western Alaska’s listeners – and KNOM’s crew – recently delighted in hearing a familiar voice on our airwaves: staff alumnus Paul Korchin, who volunteered a week at our station in mid-March.

Paul, a longtime news director who now serves on our board of directors, generously contributed many hours to KNOM’s coverage of winter “race season” in our region: in particular, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race (detailed here) and the Nome-Golovin Snowmachine Race. (“Snowmachine” is Alaskan parlance for snowmobile.)

Nome-Golovin is a fast-paced, 190-mile roundtrip from Nome to the community of Golovin and back. We cover the competition because of the high level of interest among our listeners; we’re proud to be one of the only media organizations to do so.

As the photos above show, Paul was instrumental in our coverage both of Nome-Golovin and of the Iditarod. Top: Paul broadcasts from the frozen Bering Sea during Nome-Golovin with volunteer Eva DeLappe; bottom: Paul joins Ric Schmidt in Studio A for a live update on Iditarod 2013. Thank you, Paul!

This article is part of the April 2013 edition of our newsletter, The Nome Static.

• Read more articles from this issue
• Download the entire issue as a color PDF file.

Our photo gallery is back this month, and as you’ll hopefully glean from the images above, work is continuing at an exciting pace for the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios!

The new building, as readers may know, will be an annex to our existing building; it will be home to much-needed studio space and allow us to renovate our broadcast hardware with digital gear: far more cost-effective, easily repaired, and “future-proof” than what we use now.

The four photos this month show a crucial part of this winter’s work: the (relatively rapid) construction of our new studios’ floor, the erection of its walls, and the laying of panels for its roof. All of these pictures were taken from second-floor vantage points in our current building; as you can see, our intrepid construction crew is working deftly even at precarious heights!

As we go to press, work continues on the roof of the building and on insulation for the entire structure; we’ll have more photos in our May Static. To learn more – or to help our project keep moving forward – visit our digital studios page.

This article is part of the April 2013 edition of our newsletter, The Nome Static.

• Read more articles from this issue
• Download the entire issue as a color PDF file.

In March, it was the news in Western Alaska: once again, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was passing through our region. It was an exciting time for our listeners and staff, and KNOM was at the forefront of coverage for this inspiring and unique competition.

The Iditarod – the “Last Great Race” – is a 1,000-mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome; the finish line is just blocks from KNOM studios. The race is nearly as old as our mission; we’ve been covering the race every year since its inception in 1973.

Thanks to your support, we were able to bring the 2013 running of this epic race to our listeners, for whom the Iditarod is not just a sporting event but, also, an inspiration and a vital connection to traditional culture. Dog “mushing,” or the running of sled dogs, has deep roots in Alaska Native culture: a culture that both KNOM and the Iditarod celebrate.

KNOM’s coverage of the 2013 Iditarod included regular updates on the progress of the racers, or “mushers,” as they traversed the diverse and rugged Alaskan wilderness towards Nome. Many of the checkpoints through which the mushers passed were communities within KNOM’s listening range – further underscoring the importance of our race coverage.

As we’ve done for many years, we covered the Iditarod from the studio and from the trail, with news reporter Laureli Kinneen following the mushers, checkpoint by checkpoint, from Anchorage to Nome. (Laureli’s trip was subsidized with underwriting from local and regional organizations; their generosity made her on-location reporting possible.)

Back in the studio, KNOM rallied to cover the race with updates both on-air and online; regular broadcasts featured updates on mushers’ positions, weather conditions, and interviews, while our On the Trail blog showcased photos (a few of which are included here), audio from the finish line, and lots more.

To sample our coverage from this year’s Iditarod, we encourage you to visit our blog. Thank you so much for making this highlight of our broadcasting year possible!

Photos: the sled dogs of Iditarod 2013 champion Mitch Seavey pause a few miles outside the finish line in Nome and are silhouetted by the lights of the KNOM “spotter” vehicle; Laureli reports an Iditarod finish, live, from the finish line; musher Ramey Smyth – renowned for his dogs’ speed – mushes his team the final few feet of the race; a sled dog from the team of rookie Richie Diehl.

This article is part of the April 2013 edition of our newsletter, The Nome Static.

• Read more articles from this issue
• Download the entire issue as a color PDF file.

This article is part of the April 2013 edition of our newsletter, The Nome Static.

• Read more articles from this issue
• Download the entire issue as a color PDF file.