June 2011
Transmission 554
We're excited, honored, and humbled with the news: KNOM Radio has - for the 16th time in a row and the 19th time overall - won a Gabriel Award for Religious Radio Station of the Year from the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals!
According to the Catholic Academy, "the single most important criterion" for a Gabriel is the "ability to uplift and nourish the human spirit." A program, film, or broadcast station that wins a Gabriel "affirms the dignity of human persons" and "recognizes and upholds universally recognized human values such as community, creativity, tolerance, justice, compassion and the dedication to excellence."
KNOM will receive its 19th Gabriel at an awards ceremony this month. As with all of our awards, we share this one with you and with those who listen to KNOM and make our mission possible. Thank you so much, and congratulations!
Photo: program director Kelly Brabec holds KNOM's Gabriel from 2010. Kelly carefully compiles our annual entries for the Gabriel Awards.
Lord, you have given us so many beautiful gifts. Give us just one more: a grateful heart.
It's a bittersweet moment at KNOM as we bid farewell to Linda Maack, a volunteer who's devoted two years of service to this mission.
Since 2009, Linda has worked in our production department; she's created award-winning radio spots and has cheerfully deejayed on Sundays and during our weekday lunchtime shows.
At KNOM, Linda has broadened her already impressive resumé in broadcasting, tirelessly worked for community causes (including Relay for Life; see more on page 3), and always offered enthusiasm, kindness, and a contagious smile to her friends and colleagues.
We hope you'll join us in wishing Linda every future success! She'll be greatly missed at KNOM.
Teach me, my God and King, to see You in all things, and to see You in all that I do.
Work continues on KNOM's next big project: a major expansion and renovation of our studios that would convert our broadcast hardware from analog to digital. This conversion will be crucial to KNOM's future, since our current equipment is aging and uses technology that, each year, is becoming more difficult and more expensive to operate and repair.
As we've mentioned in previous issues of the Static, we're so grateful for the support we've already received. One of our local supporters is Randy Pomeranz, who took the lead on constructing our current studio building in the early 1990s. Two decades later, Randy's signed on again to help construct our new studios. Thank you, Randy!
Photos: Randy (in sunglasses) and general manager Ric Schmidt survey blueprints for the new building; they're standing on the future construction site, just west of KNOM's current studios.
I still believe in God's gift of hope.
It has become a constant companion.
There are times when I cling to it, as one would a life raft. At other times, hope is like a balloon or a kite on a string. I don't have to see hope to feel it tug on my spirit.
This spring, for the second year in a row, KNOM was proud to take part in Relay for Life, a community event organized by the American Cancer Society.
Relay for Life rallies participants to raise money for cancer research and treatment, and it also helps to raise awareness for those struggling with cancer and those lost to the disease, especially those in Western Alaska.
On a Saturday night in mid-May, KNOM staffers, in their off hours, joined the Nome community in walking around Anvil City Square, a common gathering place in the heart of town. They took turns walking throughout the night and into the morning; the overnight relay is symbolic of a person's struggle with the disease, a journey through darkness into the hopeful light of a new day. (Among those walking were KNOM's Ric Schmidt, Kelly Brabec, and David Dodman, seen at top. Photo by Nome's Lew Tobin.)
Our participation in Relay for Life underscores something we've believed since the beginning of KNOM: that the mission of supporting our community continues even when the microphone is turned off.
Change is happening rapidly in Western Alaska.
We're slowly losing our snow mounds and sea ice - such as at the coastal village of Teller, in the photo at middle - and we've already lost something that's common everywhere else in the world: darkness. For the next few months, the sky will never get completely dark. As the photo at bottom illustrates, the daylight at midnight is already bright enough to clearly read a book. (Or a watch.)
This summer will be a very special one for KNOM Radio Mission. By the time you read this, we'll be just weeks away from KNOM's fortieth anniversary.
Our radio station made its first official broadcast on July 14th, 1971. We've been on the air continuously since then, airing everything from popular music to Alaska Native storytelling to breaking news, weather, and much, much more. We're honored that, over the past four decades, so many Western Alaskans have listened to us in their homes, their workplaces, their boats, and their campsites. Donors like you have made these forty years of high-quality, award-winning broadcasting possible.
To mark our anniversary and reaffirm our mission's commitment to Western Alaska for the next forty years, we're planning a few simple but special activities in Nome during the days surrounding July 14th, 2011. You'll find more information about our 40th birthday - and lots of highlights from KNOM's history - on our website: knom.org.
Photos (top to bottom): An old "I like KNOM" decal, a vestige of the days when the station broadcast only on 780 AM (since 1993, KNOM has also broadcast at 96.1 FM in the Nome area); elder Tim Gologergen and KNOM volunteer Sean Brennan co-host "Radio Bridge to Siberia," a bilingual program (in English and the Siberian Yupik Native language) that featured stories of interest both to Alaskan and Russian listeners; a dispatch from KNOM newsie Steve Havilland on the exceptional, devastating storm of 1974, as it appeared on the news wire from the Associated Press.
I will make the Lord my music.
I will make His love the key, which tunes my heart to His and gives my life its harmony.
We encourage you to consider adding missions like KNOM to your will.
Legacy gifts help sustain KNOM's mission. Your contribution could help ensure our operations for decades to come.
You'll find more information about legacy giving here.
