FREE SPEECH

Frontiersman

PALMER — Come Alaska State Fair time, a group of volunteers hopes you’ll have yet another option on your radio dial, replete with content broadcast live from the state fair.

“Our goal right now is to be broadcasting on the air for the fair, that’s our target,” said Mike Chmielewski, one of the board members for Radio Free Palmer.

He said Radio Free Palmer is meeting with fair officials, talking about what kind of things they’d like to have broadcast.

As for Radio Free Palmer, the station has picked out call letters — KVRF — and a frequency — 89.5 FM — and has put up a tower and a transmitter hut in Sutton. And, given that the fair begins Aug. 25, it also has less than three weeks to get everything done.

Right now, radio personnel are waiting on local utilities.

“We’ve got some things to do and it’s partly dependent upon the power,” Chmielewski said. “If they can get the power and the phone to it that’s the last piece.”

Another thing that needs to be accomplished — the studio needs to be built. That’s going on now in downtown Palmer on the second floor of the business plaza that also houses Turkey Red.

As if there weren’t enough moving parts, the station is simultaneously soliciting volunteers. The station needs all kinds of help — from on-air personalities and mixing board operators to office staff.

Chmielewski said he meets with people every day who are interested in helping in one way or another. Some have radio experience, some don’t. Anyone who wants to be a part of it can e-mail manager@rdiofreepalmer.org or drop by the station’s Facebook page. Or they can just buttonhole a board member.

“If they see me walking by or David Cheezem at Fireside Books,” Chmielewski said. “We’re so close now that it should be people can see if they are interested in being a part of it.”

He said he would be sitting down for an interview soon with Samantha Berg and Kevin Middleton from the Alaska Center for Acupuncture who are interested in putting together a health show. Volunteers are out in the community with recorders gathering interviews about the fair and other things.

There is no required skill level for volunteers.

“If they’ve been in radio and want to get back in or they want to learn about it, that’s our purpose,” he said.

Radio Free Palmer was founded in 2005 and is a nonprofit with a mission “to establish, develop and operate an educational community radio station in the Palmer-Sutton area.”

Since its founding, it has maintained a presence online at radiofreepalmer.org, where it posts podcasts and hosts live streams of its own locally produced radio shows and public meetings like those of the Mat-Su Borough Assembly and, more recently, the Mat-Su Borough School District Board of Education.

As for programming, Chmielewski said the lineup will be fluid with pieces added as the station goes along. The plan is to have a full slate of shows when the station goes on the air.

“That’s going to be a beginning piece,” Chmielewski said. “It’s not as if we’re going to open up and have all the programs we’ll have within a year.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.