Rhonda McBride
KNBA News ProducerRhonda McBride has a long history of working in both television and radio in Alaska, going back to 1988, when she was news director at KYUK, the public radio and TV stations in Bethel, which broadcast in both the English and Yup’ik languages.
From the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race — to the revival of the Yup’ik language — to the fight to protect the subsistence way of life, McBride was immersed in Alaska Native culture and history on a daily basis. It was one of the best jobs she ever had, she recalls, because she got to work alongside pioneering Yup’ik broadcasters, who incorporated modern technology with traditional story telling skills to preserve their language and culture.
After almost ten years in Bethel, McBride moved on to the Alaska Public Radio Network in Anchorage. She was also a public television producer at KAKM-Channel 7, where she hosted public affairs programs and moderated political debates. Later she worked at KTUU-Channel 2 and KTVA-Channel 11, where she covered politics, economics, rural, and Alaska Native issues.
At KTVA, McBride hosted and produced Frontiers, a weekly TV magazine show which won national awards for its in-depth coverage of rural Alaska and series of documentaries on the Hiland Mountain Lullaby Project, which brought local artists and inmate moms together to compose songs for their children.
In recent years, she returned to her roots in radio to produce KTOO’s Juneau Afternoon talk show. Currently, she is news director at KNBA Radio.
In 2022, McBride was inducted into the Alaska Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame and awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
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Yup'ik and Inupiaq spelling bees, like the one held in Anchorage on Sat. April 13, in Anchorage, are a relatively new experience for students. But organizers of this year's statewide Native language spelling bee believe they help to boost reading and writing skills. Literacy is a big challenge for Indigenous languages that a few generations ago were never written, only spoken.
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The Alaska Native Heritage Center gets funding to expand cultural tourism.
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When the Moment Comes is a play that brings light to a dark chapter in history, based on the true story of Baha'is, who were persecuted for their religious beliefs after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. A story that is both haunting and inspiring — that honors the memories of a group of men and women, executed in 1983 after they refused to renounce their faith.
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The national media dubbed the case the “Memory Card Murders,” because of the gruesome video Brian Smith recorded of his killings. During the trial, prosecutors raised another troubling possibility – that Smith had allegedly confided in others about his crime, including an Anchorage musician named Ian Calhoun. Activists have staged several protests, calling for Calhoun’s arrest.
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Interest in Arctic sports, also known as Native Youth Olympics, is growing all over the world in Arctic nations beyond Alaska and Northern Canada. NYO advocates have pushed leaders of the North American Indigenous Games to include traditional Arctic sports for many years. Organizers have finally included them on a trial basis for its 2027 games in Calgary, but NYO fans say it'll take a lot more work to make Arctic sports an official part of the event.
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Since the last census, the number of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) have grown in Anchorage — less than 10 percent in 2010 and more than 13 percent in 2022. Organizers of the first AAPI Anchorage Mayoral forum say they want to do away with the stereotype that the AAPI community is a "silent minority."
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This year the Arctic Winter Games were held in the Ma -Su Valley, the first time this international competition has been in Alaska in a decade. Many call this event, which is held once every two years, the Olympics of the North. Alaska governor Wally Hickel and other Arctic Nation leaders founded the Arctic Winter Games in 1959. They believed that the peoples scattered across the Circumpolar North share a mutual identity — and in the case of large countries like Northern Canada and Alaska, perhaps have more in common with the rest of the Arctic than they do with the rest of their own countries.