This is KYUK General Manager (GM) Shane Iverson’s last week on the job. After 19 years with KYUK, he’s leaving the helm of the Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) Delta’s public media organization to manage the City of Bethel’s newly rebuilt Parks and Recreation department.
Iverson sat down with KYUK News Director Sage Smiley to reflect on his time at KYUK.
Read a transcript of the conversation below. It’s been lightly edited for clarity and flow, and may contain transcription errors.
KYUK (Sage Smiley): Good morning Shane.
Shane Iverson: Good morning Sage, and everyone listening out there in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
KYUK: How much more time do you have as GM?
Iverson: Well, let's see, as GM, I have like a day, because the [Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race (K300)] starts very soon, and I become a different position at KYUK during the K300.
KYUK: Which is…
Iverson: Let's see, I'm on the stream team, because we're going to be doing a stream out with KYUK and K300 this year. So that's going to be really cool to bring the race internationally and video and audio to the entire world. But yeah, officially, my last day with KYUK as general manager is [Feb. 9], so you know, a few days away.
KYUK: How does that feel?
Iverson: It's a little bit surreal, but we've just been so busy getting ready for the K300, and I'm trying to wrap up some projects, and I'm just really focused on leaving everything in the best position possible. So I haven't even really allowed myself to totally process the emotions going into this. It's just kind of like work, work, work, and doing everything I can to make sure all the great stuff we did doesn't get lost to time.
KYUK: When do you think it'll hit?
Iverson: Probably… Well, okay, so [Feb. 10] I report to the City of Bethel with the new position, and it's going to be coming off, like, an 80 hour work week, so I'm not expecting many coherent thoughts on that first day of work. So sometime next week is when I anticipate.
KYUK: Elaborate on that for us, your new position is going to be…
Iverson: So I'll be the Parks and [Recreation] director for the City of Bethel, and it's been somewhere like 10, 15 years, probably in that range, since the city had that position. I believe one of their big impetuses is they'd like to let go of the company that's been doing a great job contracted to run the swimming pool, but my understanding is a cost-saving measure, they like to get that back within regular city employment, and it's been about 10 years. So I guess now's the time.
KYUK: Yeah. So looking back at your time at KYUK, it predates your general manager position. Would you sum up your time at KYUK for the folks who may not know?
Iverson: Yeah, it's kind of like two phases, I guess, because there was everything before I was general manager, and then everything after. So my time before I became GM, when I was a reporter and worked in radio, I would describe that as just, like, really exciting, fun, always learning something new and really interactive. Because I had to, and got to, speak with people from all over the Y-K Delta every single day, and [it was] just tremendous period of growth. As you know, when you're a news reporter, you just have a lot to learn, and you're expected to be very adult-like so, yeah, coming into that position at 26 years old for me as learning what it meant to be a real adult –
KYUK: Your frontal lobe is finally developed, you're on your way.
Iverson: And then, yeah, I think the general manager position, you know, one of our long-term employees, I think the best compliment I got was that I got us through some rough waters. And I think that's a pretty good description. We lost a lot of great people during my time. And I'm talking about, like, John Active and [Lillian Atmak Michael], we think about Lillian every time we come up to the K300. And then, like, our board president Max Angellan, and then just on top of all the other major transitions, the loss of state funding, [COVID-19], some huge reorganizations of staff. When I first started, we had basically no newsroom. And then I was the radio department at the time, and so we kind of had, like, barely a radio and news department when I first jumped into the GM position. And we've had some huge transitions in news, obviously, since. And so I guess I've kind of felt like the shock absorber for KYUK, like I'm trying to keep everything nice and steady and calm so our audience isn't interrupted with what they expect, and our staff can focus on the task at hand. And then, of course, we had our studio tower, we call it, but our television and FM radio tower got damaged by ice and high winds, most likely. And so getting a brand new tower, and our other tower was sinking in the permafrost, and that kept us up at night. I just kind of feel like, during my time here, it was nothing like I expected. All of the goals I started with totally changed and we just had to kind of go with the flow. And the flow is pretty turbulent, but yeah, so that's kind of how I'd put it in a nutshell.
KYUK: That's a big position with a lot of iterations.
Iverson: Yeah, I would say. I guess so.
KYUK: Is there a way you could possibly sum up your time at KYUK in one word?
Iverson: In one word? Yeah, I probably could, that word would probably be, it's like on the tip of my brain – but rewarding, I guess. Whatever, the word is for when you feel like you have accomplished, for the most part, your duty to your fellow citizens.
KYUK: I feel like rewarding is a good one for that.
Iverson: We'll call it rewarding.
KYUK: So how has KYUK changed over the time that you've been here? Whether you want to just talk about when you've been in the GM position, or throughout your entire time at KYUK?
Iverson: Yeah, let's see. I mean this, this is, let's never forget, this is the oldest Native-owned media organization in North America, so it's got a nice, long history when I walked into it. I'd say some of the biggest changes have actually been outside of KYUK, like just the current governor and his position on not funding public radio, which is his prerogative under his veto power. So that was just kind of a huge financial change, especially for KYUK because we're a small station receiving a radio and a television grant, so that probably impacted us more than any other station in Alaska. So that's kind of like on the peripheral, but like within the building and within the community. I mean, the biggest overarching change is societal, and that's towards digital media. And there was a time where there was obviously no social media, which is getting harder and harder to remember now, but at that time, there really was only KYUK for local content. And now people can help contribute to local content with their own phone, you know, from their home. So that has kind of changed, like, our role and our mission a bit, and kind of tweaked the way we handle things and where we can be valuable to the community and learning to – instead of a ton of information it might be less quantity, but a higher quality of information that's harder to get, that you can't find on social media. And you know, within the building, we've done a lot to digitize. We've been through several website iterations, but when I get a sense of what the biggest change is, is like at the moment, we just have amazing staff at every position. And when I say that, I mean both the quality of their work, but also just the character of the person and the way they interact with one another. I think there's been amazing people at KYUK at all times, but right now we all really get along well with each other in the community, and I think that is so important, especially in a mid-sized organization like we are. You can only have so many prickly personalities at such an organization. So yeah, when I walk through the building now, I feel, like, a lightness that hasn't always been there, and it's because of the staff here.
KYUK: Companion question to that, how have you changed?
Iverson: How have I changed? Well, I've gotten more serious in general, just because the work is just more serious and it’s just a lot of time just buckled down to your desk, pushing through paperwork or problems. So like, that's one thing I've definitely noticed. Yeah. I mean, that's probably the biggest change.
KYUK: Yeah.
Iverson: Which might be hard to believe when you meet me, that I'm more – how serious was I not before? But yeah, I feel pretty serious at the moment.
KYUK: So another two-part question: what has been – if there's a way you can identify this, because I'm sure there are plenty of ups and downs – but a best and worst day or moment for KYUK or for you?
Iverson: There's so many, oh gosh. I mean, some of the worst days, we talked about the loss of the people that we really care about. Those are all the worst days, by far. But yeah, I mean learning the tower was sinking, learning the other one was damaged. Those were pretty awful days. When I was first learning, when I first started, we had a charitable gaming manager and that person actually ended up in the headlines for reasons that are not great, not related to KYUK in any way, but we had to let them go. So learning charitable gaming, on top of the other staffing shortages that we had, was just really difficult. So those are among the worst days. Any time a staff member is going through something really difficult too, and I'll see it because it affects their job performance, and we have to address the job performance. But you know, just knowing the struggles, people kind of have to divulge their struggles at times to you. And so that can be hard to hear, and you feel sorry for people who are going through things. So that's never easy. The best, oh man, the best. There's, oh gosh, there's so many. I mean, anytime we pull off a huge piece of content, I think it's pretty amazing. So, like, any of our hard hitting journalism pieces, and I'm not going to discuss exactly which ones, because, you know, sometimes those can be scabs I don't want to pick out in the community. But anytime we did a big piece of journalism that was well-documented, well-researched, I think those are huge. And then really good-called basketball games, like when Mathew [Hunter] started, for example, and you know, he's getting me compliments all over town. Like, ‘Good job with that Mathew kid.’ ‘I had really nothing to do with it, but I'll take the compliment. Thank you.’ But you know, those type of things where each employee kind of has their standout moment where they kind of break through to the public and people really become aware of that, that KYUK personality in a positive way, those are super fun. I love that. Both towers being built, I wouldn't say they're, like, my happiest moments, but as a staff, you know, probably crowning accomplishments. And credit to Dean Swope for all he did for both of those projects and to keep KYUK running, and Kristin Hall also, who will be taking over as acting general manager. And then some of the very early victories, because I'd been here for, you know, 12 years about when I started as general manager. So when we got funding to put fencing around the bottom of KYUK, I was just super happy about that, because I was always nervous that someone would get under there and do something to the building that we didn't want to happen. So those are, those are some of the biggest and best memories.
KYUK: What do you feel like you're leaving with as you think about wrapping up your time at KYUK?
Iverson: Well, a tremendous amount of communication skills. I mean, anytime you're in a leadership, probably anyone who's done this, you really have to start to use your full arsenal of people skills, exercising hard power and soft power. [And] I guess just a much, much better understanding of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and its place in the world, and the people of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, between the journalism, the radio, and then management, it was a pretty well-rounded experience in that respect.
KYUK: Is there anything else you want to make sure you mention as you – I mean, essentially this is your swan song for KYUK. So what do you want to say to the people of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta?
Iverson: Well, when the K300 got moved to this weekend, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we're going to do this during when I'm trying to wrap everything up.’ But now that we're here, I'm super stoked to be going out on the K300, because it's just such an essential event that KYUK covers. And it was one of the things that drew me in to be part of KYUK was the ability to cover that race, and spent a lot of energy kind of improving our organization around it. So yeah, you know, as I leave, I'm kind of glad that that that'll be the last act I'm able to perform as general manager, and I'll just add, too, I've offered my services to continue to help in the transition, because KYUK is just so important and I just want to do everything I can to make sure we're everyone, staff and the audience, have continuity going forward. I just can't say enough how important some of the people I mentioned, Dean and Kristin, have been to KYUK and our success over the years. It's really hard to imagine how we would have continued to function without both of them, Dean functioning and helping, being the work behind these amazing infrastructure projects that we've been able to develop, and Kristin Hall, securing funding and our partnership, dialoguing through how we can figure out these complex problems has been super essential. So on top of the other great staff there, I really couldn't say enough about those two in terms of what it means to KYUK as a whole. But I guess my message to the people of the Y-K Delta and something I'll continue to promote, because I will always be a giver to KYUK, a donor, a fall fund raiser – I think we have to be careful never to take KYUK for granted. It's been here 50 years, and it feels like it will always be here doing the same thing. But it takes a lot of support from the community. It takes people calling their favorite lawmakers to make sure that everyone in government understands how important it is. And you know, with so many newsrooms, newspapers folding up across the country, I really urge everyone out there to remind yourself that your participation in support of KYUK is going to be needed for it to continue. It's kind of like if your water goes out, all of a sudden you realize how precious water is, and so we never want the water to go out on KYUK because it's just like, how this station does such an amazing job of telling our stories to the world. You know, we've heard from legislative offices in [Washington D.C.] that their staff – KYUK is part of their morning news diet to know what's going on in Alaska. And that's something I'm really proud of, something that you and your team have done a lot to continue to drive forward, and it's awesome to be a part of that storytelling legacy. Continue telling your stories, and this isn't just KYUK, but I encourage everyone: keep telling your stories, whether it's here on KYUK or in your home.
KYUK: Well thank you, Shane, for your time today and for all your time at KYUK.
Iverson: Thanks Sage. Thank you so much to everyone in the Y-K Delta. Thanks for letting me serve you like I have for the last few years. We'll make sure we get a good handoff here to the next GM, and we'll be seeing you around the Y-K Delta.
