December 18, 1992
KNOM volunteer music director John Albers suddenly finds himself in a red suit, filling in for an ailing Santa. John portrays the jolly old elf on a National Guard flight to the village of Elim, about 100 miles east of Nome.
KNOM Radio Mission, 2012: Twelve Snapshots
January
In Nome, KNOM’s news department is on the front lines for a story with worldwide interest: the Russian tanker Renda makes an unprecedented winter fuel delivery, escorted in its journey through the frozen Bering Sea by the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy. The delivery comes in the wake of an epic, fall 2011 storm that delayed Nome’s final fuel shipment.
February
KNOM covers the inaugural running of a sled-dog race honoring a community leader in Western Alaska. The Paul Johnson Memorial Norton Sound 450 sends dog teams from the community of Unalakleet (YOU-nuh-luh-kleet) to the finish line in Nome. In the pre-dawn hours, musher Pete Kaiser finishes first, and KNOM’s Laureli Kinneen calls the finish live.
March
KNOM rallies to cover all angles of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race (the 1,000-mile competition from Anchorage to Nome). The race is an inspiration to thousands, and in 2012, a new generation takes center stage: 25-year-old Dallas Seavey wins the race, while young musher Rohn Buser finishes alongside his father, Martin, a multiple-time Iditarod champ.
A little kindness
Our inspirational spot for the week:
A little kindness to one person is better than a vast love for all of mankind.
December 1989: Mt. Redoubt erupts
Alaska’s Mount Redoubt began erupting in late 1989 and continued to erupt for months afterward; this photo was taken in April 1990.
December 15, 1989
489 miles southeast of Nome, the Mount Redoubt volcano erupts, spewing great clouds of sulfurous volcanic sand and dust into the air.
While the debris drifts away from Nome, the corrosive billows of grit ground airplanes in Anchorage, western Alaska’s supply hub. Grocery shelves grow bare, holiday presents are missing, and Nome’s mailboxes lay empty for a week. For the next four months, Redoubt’s periodic ash clouds disrupt flights to and from Nome.
The brighter they shine
Our inspirational spot for the week:
God’s promises are like stars: the darker the night, the brighter they shine.
Bright colors in the cold skies, and warm thanks from a listener
Sunrise over downtown Nome, Alaska on a clear November morning.
The Northern sky has seen a thousand shades of red and yellow as the sun pokes up in the southeast and sinks into the southwest. There have been beautiful auroras streaming in the night sky: like sparkling, swirling curtains of green and red light. God has blessed us with a bounty of beauty, reminding us, every day, to delight in the splendor of His creation.
A local listener called KNOM on Thanksgiving and asked that her message be passed on to all who support KNOM:
Tell everyone thank you. Thank you for my radio station. Thank you to the volunteers who have traveled so far to be with us. Thank you for coming here. Thank you for the music, prayers, news, and announcements. Thank you for being my friend. God bless and quyanna*.
We pass on these thanks to the entire KNOM family.
*Quyanna means ”thank you” in the Alaska Native languages of our region.
December 1986: Under a coat of ice, the tower is near collapse
December 3, 1986
A storm this week deposits ice the thickness of cucumbers on the KNOM tower and its guy wires, which sag dangerously. The tower is in imminent danger of collapsing.
Tower expert Rod Ewing immediately flies in from Wasilla, Alaska to supervise Timothy Cochran and Tom Busch as they strain to keep the structure standing by carefully tightening the stretched guys, one by one. “It was close,” Timothy relates.
The trouble with trouble
Our inspirational spot for the week:
The trouble with trouble is that it often starts with fun.
