On a normal afternoon, Tuesday through Friday, you can find me in our main studio.
I’ll be DJ-ing the 4 O’Clock Needle Drop (That’s our themed call-in request show. If anyone has any great ideas of a theme, please share in the comments!), reading community announcements and messages sent to friends and family around the region, and checking the transmitter readings. But last Friday, instead of doing the show live, I set things up in advance and piled into the KNOM truck with Karen and Gabe and bumped off down the road toward Council.
I hear it’s a beautiful drive at any time of year, but I was excited to see the tundra is already starting to turn from green to its fall colors, gold and orange. Autumn arrives in August up here, apparently. Second-year volunteer Karen also pointed out to Gabe and me where we’ll be able to watch the mushers come in before they cross onto the sea ice at the end of the Iditarod.
That beautiful afternoon we were only going as far as Cape Nome, to a roadhouse owned by longtime KNOM friends Pat Hahn and Sue Greenly, who welcomed us into the fairytale-like house on the beach for our first volunteer retreat of the year. Soon we were stuffing ourselves with Father Tom’s homemade moose stew, delicious locally-baked bread, and three kinds of desserts in front of fire that kept cheerfully burning driftwood nearly the whole time we were there.
The retreat was a time for us to take a step out of our already busy world at the radio station, to reflect on where we came from and where we’re going and why we’re doing it, and to just relax and enjoy each other’s company.
I think we all really appreciated the chance to slow down and think about our year of service—and I know we were all extremely grateful to the generosity of our wonderful hosts, Pat and Sue, and to Father Tom and Margaret for providing the abundant and delicious food as well as their wisdom and humor. I’d also like to send out a special thank you to Ric Schmidt for covering my shifts during the retreat.
We’re back at it in Nome now, and I have to say, as fantastic as it really was to hang out at the roadhouse, I’m happy to be back at the station.
Image at top: The volunteer class of 2017-2018 poses with the iconic wagon wheel at the Cape Nome Roadhouse, where they had their first volunteer retreat. Photo: DeMaioribus/KNOM.