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.

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Your love for God is no greater than your love for the least important person you know.

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

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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.

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Humans judge by the success of our efforts. God looks at the efforts.

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

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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.

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Life is like a game of tennis: the player who serves well seldom loses.

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

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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.

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Loving someone is seeing them the way God intended.

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

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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.

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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.

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