Adventist World Radio has joined local church conferences to support the Navajo radio pilot project. The Arizona and Rocky Mountain conferences will soon install production units, one in each conference, where Navajo program producers will have equipment to make programs that will be aired soon on KTNN, the largest radio station on the reservation.
The central production studio will be in Window Rock, the capital city for the Navajos. The second will be located at La Vida Mission at Lake Valley, just south of Farmington, New Mexico. An additional production studio is already installed at Holbrook Indian School in Arizona where members of the school staff operate a lowpower radio station, KJNN.
An Adventist Voice
Adventist leaders in the Navajo Nation have been planning for nearly two years to apply for a license to have their own station, an Adventist voice, for the largest Native American tribe in the USA. In late 2019 the Federal Communication Commission announced it would auction off a license for a station in the middle of Hopi/Navajo country. But because of the COVID 19 epidemic, the auction was postponed to a later date.
That’s when the Navajo leaders decided to launch a3pilot project to lease airtime on a local station. This will give the program producers opportunity to train for their program work while at the same time give the Adventist Church a larger presence in the Nation.
The Pacific Union Conference agreed to allocate $15,000 from their evangelism fund for the pilot project. Then AWR added $5,000 to help pay for airtime. AWR also agreed to provide engineering services to get the new production units installed. If all goes well, the Navajo team hopes to begin the new broadcasts by early August.
Information provided by Allen Steele in the Navajo Waves newsletter, Spring 2020
