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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

With temperatures just below freezing, small pellets of ice and snow still fall from the sky. Cooler-than-normal temperatures are slowing the retreat of the ice and snow, the air is brisk, and you can hear the occasional crackling of sea ice. Winter is not quite done with us.

Meanwhile, the KNOM volunteers are hard at work as they finish up their year-long commitment to the radio mission and to the people of Western Alaska. Dayneé Rosales will be staying a second year at KNOM, and Josh, Margaret, Eva, and Lucus will be moving on from the radio station this summer. We are so blessed to work with such committed young professionals.

As we say goodbye to these wonderful young people, we will be welcoming four new volunteers to KNOM. Please pray for all KNOM volunteers, past and present. They are one of the foundations of this critical radio ministry.

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.

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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