Blackfeet Hear Thunder Radio

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Blackfeet Hear Thunder  Radio
 
 
 
  


DJ John Davis hosts "The Captain's Love Boat Show" on FM 107.5, the  
Blackfeet radio station in Browning. TRIBUNE PHOTOS/KRISTEN INBODY 

 
Written by
KRISTEN INBODY 

BROWNING — John Davis took a unique route to his badge of  honor.
 
 
 
 
"I was the first Blackfeet to ever talk on this radio," Davis said. "This 
is  my coup story." 
Davis, a 21-year-old Blackfeet Community College student, is among the  
volunteers who have made FM 107.5 a force to be reckoned with in Browning. 
In the Blackfeet language, the station is Ksistsikam ayikinaan. That  
translates to "voice from nowhere," but you can call it Thunder Radio. 
At 30-watts, the community radio station doesn't reach too far beyond  
Browning, but its impact is growing. 
"What I've heard is, it's our own," station manager Lona Burns said. "The  
Blackfeet people have our own accent so I guess they enjoy that it sounds 
like  them." 
The DJs are preachers, teachers, students and others but have one important 
 thing in common. 
"Every single one has a positive outlook on life," Burns said. "Their  
programs transform into positive energy for the listeners." 
The station went live on Nov. 20, 2010, with only three or four DJs.  
Programming was live only from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 
"People were excited so we raised the hours to 7 a.m. to midnight, Monday  
through Friday," Burns said. 
Now the station is live daily from 6 a.m. to midnight. 
"They didn't think people would be willing to volunteer," Burns said. 
Instead, after less than a year on the air, the station has a waiting list 
of  those who want to be DJs. 
"That radio has brought about a community energy," Burns said. 
The chamber, radio station and town are working together on an event at a  
date not yet set that will include pie eating and a radio talent contest. 
"The radio station is the driving force in getting the community and 
entities  working together," Burns said. "Everyone has us in common because they 
come to  us to get information out." 
In addition to a bevy of public service announcements and community  
bulletins, the station has promoted the importance of voting, especially among  
the young, and has hosted candidate forums. 
"The apathy is so rampant in elections," Burns said. "We're pushing for  
people to go vote." 
Davis's program is about more than music, although certainly music is  key. 
"Our big enemy is apathy," he said. 
Davis said for a long time community service carried a stigma. 
"They thought of people in orange jumpsuits on the roadside," he said. 
"Never  before on this reservation has there been such a great energy of  
volunteerism." 
Davis is the voice behind the "Captain's Love Boat Show" and pledges to 
"make  love to your eardrums." 
He's said listeners hear on-the-air jokes they would never hear on a Clear  
Channel Radio station, such as: "The captain is as cool as commodity  
cheese." 
The tag line — quoted around town — is a reference to part of the 
reservation  culture, he said, and something Davis saw first-hand working at the 
commodities  office. 
"That was our prize asset. We had to watch the cheese," he said. 
When the station was replaying programming that originated elsewhere, the  
radio was all "tear in my beer" and "your cheatin' heart." They called it 
the  suicide station for its depressing old country themes. 
"I never thought I'd be hearing Martin Gaye and AC/DC on 107," Davis  said. 
The station's next step is streaming online broadcasts. 
"We have 16,000-plus members of the Blackfeet nation, but 30,000 with  
descendants and only 8,000 on the reservation," Burns said. "We want to allow  
off-reservation members to learn the language, hear our program and get a 
little  taste of home." 
The radio is a way to hear the Blackfeet language — and keep that language  
contemporary. Talented linguist Darrell R. Kipp, who uses his Blackfeet 
name  Apiniokio Peta (Morning Eagle) on the show, broadcasts a mixture of 
language  lessons and stories from elders. 
The program helps "bring an ancient language into a very modern and  
electronic age, in keeping with the notion tribal languages are viable in the  
modern age, not icons of an ancient past," he said. 
"The radio is a good vehicle to keep the language viable," Kipp said. "It  
gives the community an opportunity to listen to an hour of Blackfoot." 
The Ksistsikam ayikinaan radio program is broadcast on Mondays, Tuesdays,  
Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays during the noon hour. A free booklet to go 
 with the broadcast is available at the Piegan Institute or radio station. 
"In the program, we play numerous recordings of our venerated older  
generation speaking the language. They might be telling stories, or, for  example, 
one recording was Peter Red Horn, who has since passed on, reading the  
American Indian Civil Rights Act of 1958 in Blackfoot. We've had for the last  
six Sunday programs, the Gospel of John in Blackfoot." 
A Mother's Day episode focused on Blackfeet words connected with mothers.  
Generally the Monday and Tuesday programs are focused on language  
instruction. 
"If it's raining, we do rain words," Kipp said. "If it's snowing, we do 
snow  words. Today we're doing terminology for months, weeks and time." 
Kipp said the radio program fits well with the Piegan Institute's goals 
since  its 1987 founding to keep the language active and revitalized. 
The radio program "has been well received. I've had many individuals who 
have  voiced they're glad to hear the language again," he said. "The language 
is in a  fragile state, and it's important the community keep it in a 
contemporary  sense." 
Children are especially good at coming up with descriptive language for  
modern items such as iPods. 
The language "has to be used to keep it dynamic, and to be viable it has to 
 be spoken by children," Kipp said. 
A mantra in America has been to concentrate on English only and, especially 
 at the turn of the century, to wipe out mother tongues, Kipp said. But the 
 institute's language emersion Cuts Wood school has found that its students 
do  extremely well when they go to high school. 
"It's not necessary to sacrifice one language to another, and it's simply  
less effective than to add another language on," he said.


Reach Tribune Staff Writer Kristen Inbody at 791-1490 or 
_kinbody at greatfallstribune.com_ (mailto:kinbody at greatfallstribune.com) .
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