|
The
Year in Review: Highlights of Alaska Radio Mission’s 2004
January
2004: KNOM volunteer Emily Barrett (left) is honored with an
international Crystal Communicator Award for her production of
educational spots.
January 23rd,
with general manager/acting engineer Tom Busch out of town, program
director Ric Schmidt responds to a small problem at KNOM’s remote
transmitter site. He discovers a huge area of frozen blood, obviously
from an animal kill, possibly a polar bear, a stark reminder that three
miles out of Nome, the station’s transmitter is truly located in
wilderness.
This month,
snow drifts above some Nome rooftops.
KNOM is
featured in the January edition of St. Anthony Messenger.
February
2004: Volunteer Anna Dummer covers the annual traditional dance
festival in the Yup’ik Eskimo village of Stebbins. Some
students travel 250 miles to take part in the spirited event.
In February,
KNOM also gives listeners front-row seats to the Bering Straits Elders
and Youth Conference, with live gavel-to-gavel coverage for three days.
March 2004
sees the first broadcast of a program almost a year in the works,
“Elder Voices.” Each half-hour show highlights one Alaska Native senior
from the KNOM region.
This month,
KNOM news director Paul Korchin flies the 1,000-mile Iditarod trail, his
7th time.
March 16th,
the Federal Communication Commission throws out on a technicality all
eleven applications for KNOM village translator transmitters. The
translators were intended to bring KNOM’s signal into villages where the
station cannot be heard. KNOM plans to appeal.
April 2004:
Desperate for a spring that won’t arrive for another two-and-a-half
months, volunteer Julia Dunlap provides an artistic bouquet to the KNOM
Studio A window (left).
April 16: KNOM
applies to have its translator applications reinstated.
The station
appears in April’s Catholic Digest, the article titled “Best
Little Radio Station in America?”
This month,
volunteer Clinton White observes that while gasoline prices have risen
to $2.43 per gallon in Nome, the cost of a gallon of supermarket
drinking water is $5.55!
May 2004:
www.knom.org, KNOM’s web site, celebrates its seventh birthday.
May 22:
General manager Tom Busch’s alma mater Boston College presents him an
honorary doctorate for his longtime work at the mission (left, with
Boston College president Rev. William Leahy, SJ). The event is attended
by three dozen former volunteers and KNOM friends.
Once more, the
mission is in print: KNOM’s volunteers are featured this month in My
Friend, the Catholic magazine for children.
On Mother’s Day
(left), an angry Bering Sea piles hundreds of thousands of tons of
broken ocean ice onto a thousand feet of the Nome jetty. It’s an “ivu”
(pronounced EE-voo), an impressive pile of ice thirty feet high, with
some chunks the size of pickup trucks.
Please consider
adding missions like KNOM to your will.
We prayerfully
apply all bequests to major improvements and to funds that will provide
for KNOM during future emergencies.
June:
At the conclusion of her second volunteer year, Amy Flaherty is hired as
KNOM’s public affairs director. Amy continues to deejay the station’s
popular morning show. Among her continuing focuses is the now-popular
program “Elder Voices.”
In June, Tom
Busch flies to Anchorage to meet with F.C.C. commissioner Kathleen
Abernathy, who is touring Alaska. The commissioner agrees with KNOM
that the agency should not impede the station’s remote translator
project.
The following
week, Tom is contacted by F.C.C. personnel, who assure him that the
translator applications are in order.
July:
Beginning her second volunteer year, Anna Dummer tackles the job of
archivist, charged with digitally preserving KNOM’s many hours of
historic recorded programming.
(Left) Program
director Ric Schmidt shows Anna how to use a tape recorder, something
KNOM staff have not routinely operated for ten years.
In
July, assistant program director Kelly Brabec demonstrates how to play a
vinyl record, something many in the group of visiting village children have never
seen.
The kids ask to
hear “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley.
September
21: The F.C.C. grants all eleven KNOM applications for village
translator stations. In 2003, the Commission had accidentally dropped
two other villages from the list, and these will be approved later.
Staff hope to install at least a few translators before the worst of
winter hits, but it’s not to be.
October 10:
(Left) Fairbanks Bishop Donald Kettler visits Nome to preside at a Mass
of forgiveness and reconciliation, broadcast by KNOM. He apologizes to
anyone who may have been hurt by a minister of the church, and asks
victims to come forward for healing. He further asks forgiveness of
Native Alaskans for historic acts committed against them by the Church.
October 19: A
10-foot Bering Sea storm surge topped with 10-foot breaking waves
crashes into Nome. The town loses power. Thanks to its emergency
generators, KNOM remains on the air, instructing and calming residents
during hours of continuous coverage. The storm passes sooner than
forecast, damage is limited to a few dozen buildings and everyone
breathes a sigh of relief.
(Left) Nome's
main street following the storm.
October 22: In
Los Angeles, Ric Schmidt accepts KNOM’s Gabriel Radio Station of the
Year Award, given for positive programming that addresses human needs.
It is the twelfth time that KNOM has received this accolade, one of the
highest in broadcasting. Ric acknowledges KNOM’s staff, as well as the
many contributors whose sacrifices keep the station on the air.
November 5th,
Ric is elected president of the Alaska Broadcasters Association, the
state’s radio and television trade organization. At their annual
convention, the group awards KNOM “Best Web Page,” and presents two
“Goldie” Awards to former volunteer Emily Barrett, one for a Native
cultural series, the other for producing the station’s 2003 Christmas
play. Emily shares the latter honor with former volunteer Andrew
McDonnell, who wrote the program while teaching college in Maine.
December:
The year ends, as it began, with now former volunteer Emily Barrett
receiving awards.
We can’t say it
too often. You are our mission’s strength. Thank you so very much.
You remain in our prayers.
May God bless
you abundantly throughout the new year and always. |
