SCREENING (left) KNOM volunteer music director Leah Radde is at the controls in Studio A.

The left-hand computer screen displays the current lineup of weather, inspirational and educational spots, music and so forth.

The right screen can be used to produce all kinds of data.  At the moment, it holds a list of songs, which enables Leah to make substitutions so as to time to the top of the hour.

HAIR TODAY…KNOM volunteer inspiration director Danielle Sylvester spends a lot of her off-time volunteering as an Emergency Medical Technician, often on call during overnights for Nome’s volunteer ambulance service.

Recently, she donated her hair to be made into a wig for cancer patients.  Watch for a photo next month!

THANK YOU, ANONYMOUS!  In 1992, our mission’s building fund was given two large cashier’s checks by a contributor who asked “please do not try to find out who I am.” 

Those gifts, three grants and thousands of donations by thousands of people enabled us to replace rotting, expensive, dangerous buildings with the safe and efficient super-insulated structures that house the studio and volunteers today.  (Super-insulated?  You bet.  The walls are 15 inches thick.)

If that was a time before you joined our mission, you can rejoice that thanks to drastically lowered maintenance and fuel costs, the construction has saved our mission something like $1,100,000.

If you were part of that effort, we thank you again, from the bottom of our hearts. 

And, Anonymous, we especially thank you.  You remain in our prayers.

EASY AS ABC: (left)  KNOM business manager Lynette Schmidt poses by the satellite dish which provides us hourly newscasts from ABC Radio.

Lynette supervises the small upstairs office and keeps the mission’s finances straight.

A KNOM volunteer from 1982 to 1985, she returned to Nome with husband Ric, now general manager, in 1995.

Three of their children are off to college, and Lynette continues to home school the youngest three, in addition to being extremely active at Nome’s St. Joseph Parish.

THE MASS, THE ROSARY, our inspirational spots and other religious programs are core elements of KNOM’s Catholic mission.

Other elements address temporal issues, wrapped with popular music and friendly companionship, in order to ensure a large audience.  (The most recent professional audience measurement indicated, depending on the village, 76% to 100% of adults as daily listeners.)

What are these temporal issues?  We could fill this newsletter.

In our region, suicide is the second leading cause of death.  (In a survey of Alaska Natives between the ages of 10 and 34, 16% reported they had attempted suicide in the preceding 12 months.)

Accidental death is 2 times more likely in our region than in urban Alaska.

Child abuse is 2.4 times the national average.  Poverty in our region is twice the U.S. average and 3 times the Alaska average.

33% of children within reach of our signal do not complete high school, and in the villages of our coverage area, only 2.2% of adults have graduated from college.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that as horrible as these statistics appear, they are far better than they were before KNOM signed on the air in 1971. 

It would not be accurate for us to take all of the credit for this, but we believe that as a trusted companion for so many people for so many hours each day, our messages of hope, how to live well, how a happy, normal, spiritual life should be, as well as how to seek help, have made a tremendous positive difference. 

Thank you so very much for making our important work possible.

FORTY YEARS AGO:  (left) Tom Karlin is a volunteer with the Diocese of Fairbanks roving construction crew.  A master carpenter and cabinetmaker, in March 1970 he ponders a building decision.

March 30, 1970, after two trips to Anchorage, volunteer engineer Tom Busch’s final plan to remodel a home into the new Catholic station’s studios is approved by fellow engineers Mel Sather and Jeff Bowden of KTVA-TV.  The connection is KTVA owner Augie Hiebert, an Alaska broadcasting pioneer who leads the early battle to establish the Nome station.

TWENTY YEARS AGO:  When Tom and Florence Busch host a Russian man and his son, they discover that the boy loves popcorn.  And so, they send them home with a jar of Orville Redenbacher and some peanut oil.

Later, a letter arrives.  “This attempt was not excellent,” it reads.  “Corns begined to blow up and was filled whole value of frying pan’s space.  It was fantastic picture.  I can’t to open cover because corns was jumping too long.”

NON-PROFIT THIRD CLASS MAIL has the lowest priority of the U.S. Postal Service.  While using it to send you this newsletter saved us over $59,000 over the past year, we have to accept that its delivery is irregular and unpredictable.

For many of our friends, due to some bottleneck in the post office, delivery of our December Nome Static was delayed almost a month, while the Year-End Report came immediately. 

In some cases, that caused the two to arrive on the same day.   We hope that you accept that we are doing everything we can to economize in every way.

LITTLE THINGS—OR NOT SO LITTLE:  Frequently, announcements over KNOM help reconnect people with their pets, their wallets or their key rings.  Not long ago, we united a family with their little girl, who had wandered out of the house.  It can be a little service—or not so little—and we thank you for making this additional bit of help possible.

YOUR PRAYERS, your gifts, your kind thoughts help buoy us during the long Nome winter.  While our outside temperatures often remain below zero, and the wind chills far below that, our hearts are warmed by your generosity. 

May our Almighty Father bless you and those you love abundantly!