For Nome, Radio Is Strictly Voluntary

NOME, Alaska —  Father Jim Poole was in Fat Freddie’s cafe, poking at his salad without enthusiasm. He’d have much rather ordered his favorite lunch--a burger and fries--but a diet is a diet, he said, and he learned long ago that discipline is an important element of survival and contentment in Nome.

The conversation turned from food to the award-winning nonprofit radio station Poole operates with a dozen young volunteers from the “Lower 48.” The 10,000-watt AM station, KNOM, is a prime source of news and entertainment for the 30,000 people isolated in northwest Alaska, an area the size of California.

“People fly into Nome the first time, take a look around and say: ‘Oh my God!’ ” Poole, 64, a Jesuit priest, said. “But, you know, the small-town environment grows on them. We’ve got 20 ex-volunteers who have stayed in Nome. Some went outside (of Alaska) when they finished their assignments at the station, and they just decided that wasn’t for them.”

True enough, Nome isn’t much to look at, with just one paved street and 3,700 hardy souls huddled on the treeless tundra along the Bering Sea, 165 miles from Siberia. Three roads lead out of town, and all end within 90 miles. The town’s population has as 33% turnover every three years, and it’s said that Nome’s eight bars do considerably better business than its 13 churches.

The last supply ship from Seattle arrives in October, and by January the Bering Sea is frozen five feet thick. No wonder Wyatt Earp, fresh from Dodge City and Tombstone, had a tough time with the winters when he moved up here in 1898 for the gold rush. He stayed for three years, running the Dexter Saloon outside of town and, except for getting arrested for drunkenness one night, generally stayed out of trouble.

Bishop Owns Station

“When I first flew in, I couldn’t believe I could make it here for a year,” said KNOM newsman Mike Jackoboice, 28, a Marquette University journalism graduate who gets a monthly $60 stipend from the station. “But the place is addicting. Drive five miles and you’re in the domain of grizzlies and some of the best sports fishing in the world. To me, that’s ideal--you’ve got the opportunity for stimulating work in an unlikely environment. What can I say, except that I’ve been here three years now.”

KNOM, owned by the Catholic bishop of Northern Alaska, began its broadcasts under Poole’s direction in 1971, an event that brought congratulatory messages from President Richard M. Nixon, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Although there are numerous inspirational spots, its daily 18-hour format more closely resembles that of a commercial station (without advertisements) than that of a religious station. It covers local news aggressively, has on-the-hour newscasts from the Associated Press wire and plays the Top 40 hits, compiled by music director Marty Willard, who recently was graduated from John Carroll University in Cleveland with a psychology degree.

The station’s audience is predominantly Eskimos and Athabascan Indians, most of whom live in isolated villages that first got television eight years ago. For them, the folksy public service messages on KNOM provide a critical link to the outside world: The station announces the departure of every “bush” flight in Nome, informs fishermen at sea when their wives give birth or there is a death in the family, gives local weather reports that are a matter of life and death in this part of the world and relays messages that, for example, say a package has been mailed to a particular family, thus dictating a 50-mile trip to the nearest post office.

“We strive for the same excellence and professionalism that you’d expect anywhere,” said general manager Tom Busch, who won the Alaska Broadcasters Assn.’s 1986 award as “Alaska Broadcaster of the Year.” KNOM also won the association’s highest honor last year, the “Goldie” for “Best Service to the Community.” Busch, a Boston College graduate who worked for a radio station in Atlantic City, has been with KNOM since its inception and is the only salaried member of the staff.

The rest of the staff is recruited through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Portland, Ore.

The station’s operating budget--about $300,000 a year--comes almost entirely from private contributions. The volunteers agree to stay for one year, living in a dormitory environment, and most eventually go on to careers outside the church. Almost all are drawn here by the adventure of Alaska and the appeal of volunteer work. Father Poole, who has made KNOM his second greatest love, has been in Nome 21 years and rather dreads the day when it will be time to leave.

“I knew I could be ruining my career by doing this--that I could be making the worst decision of my life,” said reporter Claire Richardson, 28, who quit her job at WDBJ-TV, a CBS affiliate in Roanoke, Va., to join KNOM as a volunteer. “But I looked around me there and I saw a lot of burned-out journalists, and I said to myself: ‘Is that what I want to happen?’

“I was also scared that KNOM would reflect a Catholic bias, but we’ve got freedom to pursue everything--politics, suicides, social problems. People here deserve professional news quality just as much as they do in Roanoke or Los Angeles. An experience like this, you can’t walk away from and not be a changed person.”