2009 IN REVIEW: 

January: A man drops by from the village of Chevak, 206 road-less miles south of Nome.  He points to his heart.  “KNOM is a good station,” he says.  “You touch my heart.  You touch my heart.”

In mid-month, the control panel on the transmitter site’s emergency generator indicates that it has run 677.9 hours since the unit was installed in 1998.  That’s 28 days of power outages!  The Nome Static thanks friends who contributed toward its purchase and installation .

(Left) In January twenty-below weather, Les Brown walks to the KNOM transmitter site. At high noon, the sun only peeks a few degrees above the horizon.  On a volunteer basis, Les flies to Nome several times each year to help with engineering duties.

February-March:  It’s 22 days to be remembered, during which a string of 13 consecutive brutal blizzards hammer Nome and the region.  Several days, except for police and KNOM, everything just about shuts down.  The region affected is the size of Maine to Alabama, and west as far as Chicago.

(Left)  Some of Nome’s plowed streets have sheer walls of snow ten feet high, as KNOM volunteer Danielle Sylvester demonstrates.

(Left) Program director Kelly Brabec checks out a drift a half-block from the studio.

KNOM is off the air briefly, and receives calls from many villages.  Most ask “where are you?” as though trying to locate a missing friend or family member.

March 22:  Seismologists have been watching the volcano for months, and today, Mount Redoubt (left) erupts violently, throwing corrosive ash as high as twelve miles into the atmosphere.  Alaskan air travel virtually stops, cutting off western Alaska from the outside world.  A flight that leaves Nome is unable to return to Anchorage and winds up stranded at Barrow, on the north coast of Alaska, until the ash settles.  Ten other flights are canceled.  In the first week, scientists note eleven major eruptions.

Based on past activity, the explosions are expected to continue for months.  While Redoubt continues to seethe, it fails to produce another extremely violent event and eventually quiets.  (Thanks to James Isaak, via the Alaska Volcano Observatory, for the image.)

April:  (Left) Public affairs director Laureli Kinneen (at left) and Danielle Sylvester interview NASA astronaut Bill Readdy, who has flown three Space Shuttle missions.  Readdy speaks enthusiastically to KNOM listeners about the country’s space program.

May:  KNOM receives a letter.  “I hunt and fish down to the mouth of the Yukon, and upriver [about 250 miles] to Holy Cross,” the man writes.  “All up and down the river, people keep KNOM on, and when they hear you announce that bad weather’s coming, they hightail it to a village or hunker down at camp until it clears.  Please tell everyone at the station how many lives you save every day.”

This month, KNOM is also broadcasting extensive river flood watches and warnings, as the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers and smaller streams form ice jams which back up melt water.

Also this month, KNOM general manager Ric Schmidt happens to meet a man who says that in her village, his mother’s health is failing, and she relies on KNOM to stay connected with people, as he and other friends and relatives send her little messages over the air.

And…volunteer Dave Dodman (left) begins making “tweets,” announcing upcoming programs, on www.twitter.com/knom.

May 25:  As it has for more than thirty years, KNOM provides live coverage of Nome’s solemn Memorial Day procession to the graveyard and port.  The president of the town’s VFW Auxiliary writes in part “thank you for always being there.  The veterans have mentioned on more than one occasion how much it means to them that you care enough to do so.”

June: For KNOM volunteer John Francis (left, in the KNOM Radio Mission newsroom), his reporter’s beat takes him 634 miles south to the town of Kodiak, covering a conference to discuss ways to help rural Alaskans who suffer from substance abuse, or have been sexually molested. “The number of people who have been molested is staggering,” John says.

This month, KNOM financial officer Tom Busch is elected co-chair of the Alaska Public Broadcasting Commission.
 

July 1, Father Ross Tozzi (left) returns to Nome as pastor of St. Joseph Parish and celebrates Mass less than an hour after arriving. Fr. Ross was a KNOM volunteer from 1989 to 1991, and was ordained in Nome, live on the air, on KNOM’s 30th anniversary.
 
This month, the Nome Static reports that Laureli Kinneen has produced an overwhelmingly popular call-in program on the topic of recipes for using Sailor Boy Pilot Bread, a staple hard tack cracker for western Alaskans. Dozens of KNOM contributors write to learn more about this practically indestructible foodstuff, 98% of which is consumed by Alaskans.
 

July 14: KNOM’s operation is checked with a fine-tooth comb during its Alternative FCC Inspection. Former manager Tom Busch and Les Brown, both broadcast engineers, fly to Nome for the process, and the station easily passes muster by extremely thorough inspector Ed Sutton. It's the KNOM Radio Mission's 38th birthday. (From left, Les, Ed and Tom)
 

August 24: Tom’s back in Nome to troubleshoot: The station is just about off the air. (Left)  One hundred feet above ground, a cable on the tower has burned through. A climbing team is dispatched from Anchorage to fix the problem, which is apparently caused by charring from a lightning strike in early July. “Come back soon!” reads an e-mail from the village of White Mountain. “You are my connection to the outside world!”

This morning, at very low power, KNOM reports Nome’s first frost since May 31.
 

September: KNOM volunteer Leah Radde covers an Inupiat (in-OO-pee-at, northern Eskimo) dance festival in the remote village of Wales (left), and fellow volunteer Linda Maack does the same thing in the village of Teller. They file reports by phone, and the traditional Alaska Native music they record adds to KNOM’s collection. For more than thirty years, KNOM has played one Eskimo or Athabascan Indian song an hour.
 

October: KNOM receives the 2009 Gabriel Religious Radio Station of the Year, for among other qualities, “dedication to excellence.” It is KNOM’s 17 top annual Gabriel. (Left) Leah Radde holds the latest honor.
 
Linda Maack is back in the air, this time to the village of Savoonga, covering a first-ever village workshop by the group ASSIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training), which forms and trains a support group of teenagers. KNOM’s hope is that the publicity which the station provides will encourage other villages to follow.
 
Also this month, KNOM public affairs director Laureli Kinneen (left) is in the big city of Anchorage, providing live reports and interviews from the annual Alaska Federation of Natives convention.
 

November 8: KNOM broadcasts the winter’s first storm warnings, as western Alaska is pelted by heavy snow and powerful winds.  

November 11th brings the season’s first multi-day blizzard.
 

We close with a prayer. As we embark upon the year 2010, we pray that for you and those you love, it is blessed with every good thing, and an abundance of God’s blessings. Thank you so much for your kindness. May you enjoy a blessed and happy New Year!