Indigenous Media from the Center of the World

sometime soon  (May want to add a KWDR Facebook, and other social media, not sure yet)

Why did I start this website?

Because I choose not to retire from Indigenous Media.

What if our earlier day Ridge Runners, those who ran the mountain trails faster than the rivers flowed to share the news and the stories, and the messages to and from the villages along the banks of our two rivers, what if they had broadcast internet radio, what life conditions would we be living now?

Well, they didn’t, but we do now. So what? So what …..

I am grateful to the Copia Group, Doug Renwick and Rose Jacobs, for believing in me enough to support my website efforts. I gave them my ideas and they made it happen. It all started in the year 2000 when the KIDE Hoopa Tribal Radio Board requested I, the Station Manager at the time, to start a Community Calendar. I went to Arcata to meet with Doug and a month later the website was launched with a Community Calendar suite of applications. As far as I know no other community radio station has an interactive website community calendar like KIDE’s be they a Pacifica, an NPR, or any other identity station. I am honored that the Copia Group stands beside me in the Wolf Den Radio efforts. (Even if I don’t use their calendar app on this site.)

So why Wolf Den Radio? It is something that came to mind back in the early World Wide Web days when we had dial up modems and groups of people used Bulletin Boards to chat. Many people used pseudonyms as their Chat handle. I liked the term Wolf Den Radio, I worked in a medium that had call-letters starting with the letter K, so is used KWDR as my identity.  Someone said, “Someone is using the name KWDR, it sounds like a radio station.” I said, “Yeah you’re right.”

What information will be posted?

When KIDE started it was the only Native American Non-Commercial Educational FM station in California. I felt a  moral obligation that we try to include programs about and by the other tribes in the state. We should share their news, insights and cultural feelings as best we can. Immediately it was apparent that even if we did, our broadcast range was limited.  But no more, once on the internet the world can open the messages sent out.

I envision KWDR.org as a portal for California tribes and communities to reach out to the world without having to depend solely on their websites and podcast. Allow www.kwdr.org to widen your windows. To use media well one must network, network, and network.

What about KWDR Podcasts?

This is a deeper reason for this website. Audio production is my passion. Hearing, recording and producing the stories of others is where I can spend a great deal of my time. Podcasts are the same thing, they use a different platform to share the content.  I use the free basic Podbean app to post audio features on this website and publish an allowed free amount to the internet via Podbean.  As KWDR grows more Podcasts will be published. We will see. However

To launch the KWDR web radio service off this website will take more time and financial resources. I have done full power FM radio since 1979. I want to step away from FCC radio regulations of daily broadcasting and be able to broadcast when I am ready to offer something new or newly reproduced from my archive of materials I have at hand. The KWDR.org website is ongoing and refreshed weekly.

In December 2016 I challenged myself to produce a daily radio log ala Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise mixed with the radio commentary style of Chris Stevens, (John Corbertt) of Northern Exposure. The Manager’s Log ran weekdays from December 16, 2016 to October 1, 2020 when I stepped aside as the KIDE Manager. It was a challenge. I will do this again, but not 5 days a week, and I don’t have a title for it yet. Stay tuned.

Local News of Course

I want to do audio news stories about what is happening in our area. However I don’t see myself attending several public meetings in any given week. I am more of an advocacy journalist. My favorite Co-Production every was Dying for Water, Indians, Politics and Dead Fish in the Klamath River Basin. want to be the only reporter/producer. It may take a while to build a news crew. For starters a news crew would post written stories. I am networking with KMUD-Redway, CA and will add others to a network to offer journalism, production and commentary skills to local people, primarily youth ages 18 to 25 (and older) to be independent journalists, writers, speakers, and media producers who could be hired in future Hoopa media platform venues. This will be a community effort because it is a community need.

As my friend Fr. Amde Hamilton of the 1967 Jazz and Poetry Group, the Watts Prophets, known as one of the early starters of what became modern Hip-Hop said it in his titled poem, You Have to Breed What You Need. Our communities have done this before when we say the need for Native teachers in our school district, and when we saw the need for more classroom time for our Native Languages.

 Some of Our

Featured Shows

A Work in progress