By Richard S. Towne, General Manager

KUNM has been affiliated with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for many decades. You are likely to know and understand the importance of CPB to the many local public radio and public television stations across the land. As a private corporation funded by the American people, CPB distributes community service grants each year to stations like KUNM and NMPBS.

This year, CPB has awarded KUNM $237,436 which we will spend on acquiring broadcast rights for many of our non-local shows. Through your generous giving to KUNM, we can leverage the CPB grant to fund many other parts of our operations. On December 8, 2017, CPB’s President and CEO Patricia Harrison sent a message, reprinted below, to all of the stations funded by CPB.

In her e-mail, Ms. Harrison wrote the following, “With the elevated attention in today’s news related to violations of law, especially those associated with discrimination, both outside and within public media, we believe it is important that all of us take extra steps to ensure that our organizations fulfill their responsibilities in providing a safe workplace. Please review this document and share within you organization.”

I am sharing this with you because you are part of our organization. As Ms. Harrison points out, this is more than a compliance issue. “… because it’s the right thing to do ….”

My best regards to you and yours for the coming New Year.

By Mary Oishi, Development Director

We just never know when magic shows up: an idea, a meeting, a phone call—and everything changes. That happened several times in 2017.

First, one of my co-workers got the idea to make KUNM buttons. So we put the word out to our volunteers to look for artists who would donate their work, and we also asked our UNM student artists to try their hand at some button designs. Tim Oswald, who sometimes subs for the Rock N Roll Doctor, had already done a poster for the Psychedelic Radio Head Shoppe. So we started with his work and “psychedelicized” it.

Then we got permission from many more artists to use their work: J.D. Sipe Folk Art, FagerstromFotos, Jan Bartlestone, Takao Fujioka, Gwen Triay Samuels, and Sachiko Umi. Our student artists, Keith Johnston and Geneveive Valerio, also came up with some really great designs. We will print a limited number of each.

Around the middle of January, these buttons will be available to reserve by mail or on-line. I’m excited!

Charlie at Two Wheel Drive was kind enough to donate a Grand Prize for our Spring pledge drive: a beautiful Salsa Horsethief bicycle valued at $3295.

But we had no Early Bird prizes for our renewing members who send in by mail or renew on-line before the pledge drive starts. This is always a big help, because then when we go on-air, we have a lot of wind at our backs and it’s not so stressful because we know we already have a lot of renewals. It also allows us to concentrate on getting new members, which is one of the main reasons we do pledge drives.

That’s when we got a phone call from Jan Bartlestone, offering 40 beautiful New Mexico calendars, filled with gorgeous scenes from our beautiful state. So the first 40 people who respond to the mailing in mid-January will be sent one of Jan’s amazing calendars. Also, everyone who responds will be in the drawing for his equally lovely coffee table book, also with scenes of New Mexico.

Magic keeps happening—and I have faith that you and everyone who volunteers their time or resources will help to keep it happening throughout 2018.

By Rashad Mahmood

It's been a great year for KUNM, and our Public Health New Mexico reporting project. We wrote about important stories including the uncertainties around healthcare, the opioid epidemic, how sexual assault evidence kits often go untested, and many more. We're looking ahead to a busy year in 2018, with some big changes to the project. In January we are looking forward to bringing a new public health reporter into the KUNM family. At the same time, we're saying goodbye to longtime reporter Ed Williams.

During his three and a half years on our team he covered a wide range of issues including environmental contamination, indigenous sovereignty and land rights, and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in New Mexico. He earned a slew of awards for his work, including a national award for his investigative reporting on a toxic groundwater plume in the South Valley.

Ed will be leaving us in January to join the team at Searchlight New Mexico, a new nonprofit investigative journalism outfit based in Santa Fe.

We'll miss you, Ed!

After three and a half amazing years at KUNM, I’m parting ways with the station to take a new job as a reporter at Searchlight New Mexico, a new nonprofit investigative journalism startup in Santa Fe. It’s a bittersweet thing to leave such a great station, even for an exciting new opportunity. I will miss KUNM’s listeners, staff, and my awesome co-workers on the news team. Reporting on poverty and public health, uncovering environmental hazards, and bringing the stories of New Mexico’s communities to the airwaves has been truly life changing. I’m leaving KUNM in good hands though, and I can’t wait to see what comes from the news team in the future!

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7001 Montgomery Blvd. NE
505-881-1013        
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The Amish Connection
1009 Juan Tado Blvd. NE
505-294-2638
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Vessel Health
10601 4th St. NW
505-828-3000
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