Our inspirational spot for the week:
Today is a gift from God. Will I keep it to myself, or share it with others?
In the frigid air, construction continues
Construction workers quickly erect the outside frame of the new Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios, as seen from the second floor window of KNOM’s current facilities.
The moon shines from a pale blue sky as ice crystals dance across the tundra, carried by a fierce North wind. The sun makes the snow on the land and sea ice sparkle like a billion diamonds. The ice has stopped shifting (for now), and a few brave souls are setting their crab pots through holes in the frozen Bering Sea, hoping to harvest a winter bounty of crab.
Suffering through cold temperatures and a bitterly cold wind, our construction crew has just finished nailing down the roof structure for KNOM’s Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios. KNOM news director Laureli Kinneen baked a batch of cookies for these hardy men. The crew enjoyed the tasty treats and then went right back to work. Please add your prayers to ours for the health and safety of these wonderful carpenters.
February 1993: Hearing the Mass in remote Diomede
February 28, 1993
KNOM volunteer news director Cherie Collins is on incredibly remote Little Diomede Island (pictured above), her small plane having landed on a strip cleared of snow on the Bering Strait ice pack.
The Catholic church in Little Diomede.
Diomede does not see a priest more than one or two Sundays a year. On this day, a Sunday, Cherie climbs up the steep, icy hill to the town church to pray with the villagers. She remembers:
To my surprise, they turned on KNOM! For over a year as a KNOM volunteer, I had sat behind the audio console in KNOM’s Studio A while we broadcast Mass from Nome’s St. Joseph Church, but I had no idea what an impact it made hundreds of miles away. In the isolated Little Diomede church, there we were, celebrating Mass along with our friends in Nome. I wondered how many people in other villages were also listening and praying along with KNOM.
It was an incredible experience, the kind that gives you the chills… One woman told me that they had once tried conducting their own Eucharistic liturgies, but they preferred to pray with the radio Mass because it helps them to feel connected with the outside world. Living so remotely, you can start to feel very alone. But thanks to KNOM, the distance between friends and family in other villages doesn’t seem as far. And that was exactly how I felt.
I don’t think I had ever realized the full power of KNOM until that wonderful moment.
“Try to be better…”
Our inspirational spot for the week:
Let’s not waste our time trying to be better than those around us. Let’s just try to be better than we ourselves were yesterday.
What’s a “sun dog”?
During sunrise on a recent morning, a “sun dog” – the partial halo of light around the disc of the sun – was particularly glorious over downtown Nome. Photo by David Dodman.
The bitterly cold temperatures are lingering, but there is more daylight to enjoy. Last week, we experienced a remarkable atmospheric phenomenon: bright, colorful spots of light on either side of the sun, observed as the sun sat low on the horizon. The scientific name is parhelion, but here in Alaska we call them “sun dogs.”
This unique light show is caused by light passing through plate-shaped hexagonal ice crystals during very cold weather. The crystals act as prisms, bending the light rays (as the crystals sink through the air, they are vertically aligned, and sunlight is refracted horizontally); this creates the colorful, “phantom sun” or sun dog.
Meanwhile, exceptional things are happening on the ground, too. Our brave construction crew is battling extreme temperatures as they tilt up walls at KNOM’s Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios. Please pray for their health and safety.
February 2000: A “great gathering”
February 22, 2000
Once again, it’s time for the Nome region’s great gathering: the Bering Strait Elders & Youth Conference. Now three days long, the 2000 conference explores the theme “Elders reviving traditional festivals and ceremonies.” This year, there are many round table discussions not suitable for airing. Still, KNOM’s live broadcasts total 14 hours.
Don’t wait for the cow
Don’t wait for the cow!
Our inspirational spot for the week:
He or she who wants milk should not sit on a stool in the middle of a pasture waiting for a cow to back up.
Amid the cold, construction begins for our new studios!
Western Alaska village temperatures are dropping, and wind chills sometimes reach 50 below. The north wind is relentless, and it is cold! Any exposed skin quickly reddens and is accompanied by an unmistakable stinging sensation, reminding you to cover up or get inside where it is warm.
Even with these cold temperatures, the construction crew building the Tom and Florence Busch Digital Studios at KNOM are hard at work, setting beams and joists. As we have seen in the past, getting construction materials to Nome is very difficult, and there have been a few delivery delays of critical construction materials. Work is now proceeding, and the crew will soon be attaching the plywood and insulating the floor system.They are a hardy bunch, and we can’t thank them enough for working through cold and windy winter weather.
February 1968: Legal help from Joseph Hennessey
February 16, 1968
At the request of pioneer Alaska broadcaster Augie Hiebert, Washington, DC communications attorney Joseph Hennessey agrees to provide free legal assistance. Hennessey continues to help the mission at no charge through 1990.
Defeat, and giving up
Our inspirational spot for the week:
Being defeated is a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.
