The City and Borough of Sitka’s Parks and Recreation department is gearing up for summer. Coordinator Kevin Knox joined KCAW’s Peter Apathy to share a quarterly update on parks and rec programming, including “Walk Sitka,” a virtual 297-mile walking challenge, and a new web platform that community members can use for registration. Listen to the full interview below:

You can learn more about Sitka’s recreation programming here.

The annual Brave Heart Bowls fundraiser will be held this Saturday (7-1-23). Sitkans can donate to receive a local, handmade ceramic bowl and a cup of soup to go from a local restaurant. Board members Michele Friedman and Liz Zacher joined KCAW’s Peter Apathy to share the details. Listen to the full interview here:

The fundraiser will be held at Centennial Hall from 11:30 to 2:00 on Saturday. Soups are provided by Ludvig’s Bistro, The Nugget, Pizza Express, and Beak.

The Sitka Music Festival Foundation is working to raise a $100,000 match to build the Festival’s endowment this summer. Foundation board members Charlie Morgan and Rich McClear joined KCAW’s Peter Apathy to discuss the foundation’s role in supporting the annual festival. Listen to the full interview here:

Contributions to the foundation through August 31 will be matched, up to $50,000. Learn more at www.sitkamusicfoundation.org.

An occasional day home from school can make a big impact on student learning. Blatchley Middle School principal Ben White joined KCAW’s Peter Apathy to discuss why missing just a couple of school days a month can be a major setback for some students, and how families can support their students. Hear the full interview here:

The Alaska Marine Safety Education Association has several trainings scheduled over the next few months on marine survival for commercial fishermen and other boaters. AMSEA Executive Director Jerry Dzugan joined KCAW’s Peter Apathy to discuss an upcoming drill conductor workshop and other training opportunities. Prospective participants can sign up at amsea.org. Listen to the full interview here:

Susan Briles, the patient health benefits director at SEARHC, joined KCAW’s Peter Apathy to talk about Medicare Open Enrollment. December 15 is the deadline to re-enroll for a January start date.

Long-distance cycle racer Peter Apathy and support team member Carole Knuth discuss their Team Alaska’s win in the 2022 Race Across the West. The 930 mile race covers a route from Oceanside, California, to Durango, Colorado. Team Alaska was supported by three vehicles and six support crew. The team covered the distance in 2 days, 11 hours, 29 minutes, winning both their age group (4-Person, mixed, 60-69) as well as the entire race.

Full disclosure: Peter Apathy hosts Morning Edition twice a month on KCAW. Congrats, Peter!

Lakota Harden and Caroline Fenton joined KCAW’s Peter Apathy to chat about the decolonization discussion group. The group was formed in October 2019, and focuses on societal change and healing projects. The group began as a monthly potluck in the fall of 2019, but evolved to a weekly virtual learning group during the pandemic. Email Fenton for more information. Listen here:

The decolonization discussion group meets weekly, on Thursdays at 7 p.m. via Zoom. Email caroline.fenton@sitkayouth.org to be added to the email list.

The alpine is turning color. There’s snow on the mountains. Changes are afoot, and that’s true for us at Raven Radio too.

After four years with Raven News, Emily Kwong will be departing Raven Radio in December for a 5-month international reporting fellowship through NPR and the John Alexander Project. You can read about it here. Emily will be reporting on ecological migration in Mongolia, telling the story of a nomadic population adapting to change. Emily will be moving to Washington D.C. and based in Mongolia from Mid-January to Mid-March 2019. Her stories will debut on NPR in the spring.

Emily’s last day of work will be December 7th. We’re excited to announce our 2017 Winter Fellow Katherine Rose will be taking over as interim reporter on December 10th and Peter Apathy will be our lead Morning Edition Host moving forward.

Emily first came to Raven Radio in 2014 as our Post-Graduate Fellow in Community Journalism, fresh off a plane from New York City and without any news experience. She quickly fell in love with Sitka and Southeast. Emily was hired as our full-time reporter in 2015, taking over for Rachel Waldholz. Over the years, she hosted the bi-monthly Assembly broadcast, reported on everything from lost sea lions to the danger deer pose to airplanes, tracked community conversations around mass shootings, herring, and Alaska Day, and most recently, how Sitkans are adapting to rising Cost of Living. She also taught radio class as part of DYP week at Blatchley Middle School.

“I want locals to know that this radio station is theirs, a platform for their voices and their power. Reporting in community holds you to a higher standard. I will carry that with me forever and will miss this place enormously. Thank you to everyone in Sitka for your trust and the lessons you taught me over the years,” said Emily Kwong.

“I am so proud of Emily’s incredible professional growth. We are sad to see her go, but she leaves an incredible legacy of innovation and care at Raven Radio,” said General Manager Becky Meiers. 

KCAW news director Robert Woolsey will begin the search for Kwong’s replacement after the new year. “Cultivating reporting talent is one of the things this station — this community, really — does best.” he said. “Her moving up to national reporting is a good thing. Saying goodbye to Emily means saying hello to someone else who wants to follow in her footsteps.”

To contact the News Department, e-mail news@kcaw.org or call 907-747-5879. To reach Emily personally, write her at eka610@gmail.com. You can follow her reporting in Mongolia on Instagram @thejohnaproject

Omar Kamal Ali is attending Sitka High School this year as one of several exchange students through the AFS program. For International Education Week, he sat down with his local liaison Peter Apathy to talk about his home in Egypt. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

Sitka hosts several students every year through the AFS program. One of them is 17-year-old Omar Kamal Ali. He’s an exchange student from Egypt, born in Alexandria and currently living in Cairo. His parents were born in villages in the Nile Delta. For International Education Week (11/13/17 – 11/17/17), Omar sat down with his local liaison Peter Apathy to talk about his home thousands of miles away and the one’s he’s fostering here in Sitka.

Downloadable audio.

Peter: So tell me about some traditions in your family. What traditions have been passed down in your family?

Omar: In the beginning of Ramadan on the first day, we start taking the first breakfast of Ramadan all together. In these situations, it was a huge number of people all together. All of us eat on the ground. Grape leaves – we have that, roasted with some rice. The whole family comes in. I like to see my Aunts and the kids of them. There are so many cute little kids.

Omar Kamal Ali (pictured left) with his father, mother, and uncle at a wedding in his home country of Egypt. (Photo courtesy of Omar)

Peter: I know one thing I enjoy out of you is that you know you want to get as much as you can out of this experience.  You’ve said that. That’s not the case with many people who come here, but you want to use every minute that you have here to experience something. It doesn’t really matter what it is. You just want to experience something! And that’s something I enjoy about you.

Omar: Thank you.

Peter: So what does your future hold? What do you see for yourself in the future?

Omar: If I have a chance to travel, it’s going to be here in Sitka. I have a lot of family here – like a lot of friends, which I call family. So it will be easy for me to get here and to get into college here, easier than if I want to get into any place else. Actually, I want to be a mechanical engineer or aviation engineer.

Peter: Do you see yourself with a family? Having your own family?

Omar: I’m too young to think about that right now! Still have a lot of things to do before that. So, what is a piece of advice you wish someone told you when you were my age?

Peter: When they say time goes fast, you need to believe that. Even if you think it’s not going to go fast, it does. Travel more. Spend time to get to know people. I need to remember to include you in things that I do. I need to remember to call you and say, “Hey, we’re going to do this. Why don’t you come with us?” Or, I’m going to call you at two in the morning if there are northern lights out because I know you want to see that.

Omar: Yeah! When I traveled to Skagway, I saw snow and I made a snowball and had a snow fight (laughs) Yeah, I’m actually so excited to see the Northern lights.