Programs

If you’ve been following the news about the fuel delivery to Nome or the Bering Sea snow crab fishery’s hiatus you may recognize the name Kathleen Cole. She’s a sea ice forecaster for the National Weather Service in Anchorage and her services have been in high demand this winter.

The Juneau Community Foundation and the Brady family of Skagway, Alaska are pleased to announce an agreement to establish the Margaret Frans Brady Fund. Margaret Frans Brady was a life-long arts and education advocate who supported charities in North Carolina and Alaska, where her son started a newspaper in Skagway 35 years ago. Mrs. Brady died in January 2010, and her son, William J. “Jeff” Brady, wanted her memory of good works to carry on in the community she loved. The fund is being set up as a donor-advised fund so it may assist worthy arts and education projects or scholarships in Skagway and northern Southeast Alaska. Read more.

Teressa Baldwin, 18, of Sitka and Keefer Brown, 13, of Wasilla today were named Alaska's top two youth volunteers for 2012 by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, a nationwide program honoring young people for outstanding acts of volunteerism. Teressa was nominated by Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, and Keefer was nominated by Teeland Middle School in Wasilla. Read more.

One of the most exciting developments of the past year or two is the rise of new Gay-Straight Alliances in small communities across the state. It seems that in rural Alaska the movement for LGBTQ equality is being led by young people who aren’t content to wait for things to get better in the future. Read more.

Combining startlingly fresh and candid 16mm footage that had lain undiscovered in the cellar of Swedish Television for the past 30 years, with contemporary audio interviews from leading African-American artists, activists, musicians and scholars, ”Mixtape” looks at the people, society, culture and style that fuelled an era of convulsive change, 1967-1975. Utilizing an innovative format that riffs on the popular 1970s mixtape format, this is a cinematic and musical journey into the black communities of America. KAKM: Thursday, 2/9 @9:00pm

“Lost and Found,” follows Feinstein's investigation of a mysterious music manuscript he finds that's attributed to Irving Berlin. Feinstein also persuades legendary Broadway songwriter Jerry Herman to teach him an unknown song from his own songwriter’s “trunk,” one that’s never been heard prior to this broadcast. Includes a guest appearance by Tony Award-winner Christine Ebersole. KAKM: Friday, 2/10 @ 9:30pm

The Spanish flu strikes Downton, disrupting one match, hastening another and transforming the fortunes of all. Mary, Sybil and Robert each confront a moment of truth. Anna and Bates know a moment of happiness. KAKM: Sunday, 2/12 @ 8:00pm

A Sundance Film Festival selection for 2012, this new documentary based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Wall Street Journal senior writer Douglas A. Blackmon, explores the little-known story of the post-Emancipation era and the labor practices and laws that effectively created a new form of slavery in the South that persisted well into the 20th century. Blackmon examines the concept of “neoslavery,” which sentenced African-Americans to forced labor for violating an array of laws that criminalized their everyday behavior. Actor Laurence Fishburne (“CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,”Thurgood) narrates. KAKM: Monday, 2/13 @ 8:00pm

At the third ever Mudrooms event, six Juneauites and one other Alaskan told stories on the theme "For the Love of It" at Holy Trinity Church in Juneau. Here's a sample from that "other Alaskan," Anchorage's own Representative Les Gara. Click for more.

Nome's Marjorie Tahbone was crowned Miss Indian World last year. At a recent photo shoot with UAF photographer Todd Paris Tahbone talked about the components of the garment that she wore during the competition. Click for larger view.

The movie, "Big Miracle," released this month in theatres nationwide, begins with a Barrow bowhead whale hunt, so I will begin my series on the Great Gray Whale Rescue of 1988 with a bowhead hunt as well - actually, fragments of different Barrow hunts, culminating in the spring of 1988 - the same year that the rescue took place. I was awestruck by the whale in the opening scene of the movie, in part because I have never seen a bowhead from quite that perspective in real life, yet I have seen them almost exactly like that in my dreams. Read the full photo essay.