The Alaskan panhandle station finds its success during the last half century has come from building local partnerships, especially deepening its relationships with Native communities.
Nestled in the heart of Alaska’s capital, public radio organization KTOO has been a cornerstone of Juneau’s cultural life for a long time. On October 12th the station celebrated its 50th anniversary in style, and while the event, called 50 Fest, undoubtedly reflected on the station’s storied past, it was just as much about looking ahead. As Cheryl Snyder, KTOO’s Vice President and General Manager of KTOO Music & Arts, puts it, “We act like a large station even though we’re small. We’ve always had big ideas and vision.”
Snyder, who has been with KTOO for over 27 years, arrived in Alaska in 1995 and quickly found herself drawn to public media. “I started my Alaska life in Sitka, and public radio was in my view from the beginning,” she recalls of her time at fellow CoastAlaska station KCAW. After working in fundraising and development, Snyder eventually joined KTOO, where she has stayed ever since. “I love our organization, and I love Juneau. This is where I want to live. Getting to do public media at KTOO feels like the best of the best—it’s so locally connected, yet we’ve always had this larger sense of purpose.”
KTOO’s President and General Manager, Justin Shoman, shares a similar deep connection to the station and the community. He started his public media career at WMSE in Milwaukee before joining KTOO for two years as a development officer. After a stint at Colorado Public Radio, Shoman returned to Juneau in 2022 to take the helm. “There’s just something about Juneau,” he says. “Public media felt like a calling career-wise, and I walked away from here all those years ago knowing I would be back.”
This deep connection to place and community will be on full display during 50 Fest, an event that Shoman describes as a celebration of both KTOO’s history and its future. “We’re really trying to put our finger on both ends — honoring our history and the community that has supported us, but also engaging younger audiences with a modern, forward-thinking approach,” Shoman explains. The event will feature a diverse lineup of local musicians, from folk and acoustic acts to rock bands and a hip-hop showcase. “This event speaks to the diversity of what we program, and it reflects our investment in local artists across genres and generations.”
KTOO operates three radio stations: its namesake KTOO broadcasting news and talk programming, as well as two music stations, KRNN and KXLL. Each station serves a different segment of the community, but they all share the same mission of amplifying the voices and stories of Juneau. “KRNN is a patchwork quilt of sounds, leaning towards traditional public radio with jazz, classical, and volunteer DJs playing everything from contemporary to classic rock,” Snyder says. “KXLL, on the other hand, is all about hip-hop, soul, and contemporary rock. We feature a lot of Alaskan artists, including Indigenous musicians, which gives the station a really unique sound.”
The growth of KXLL over the past few years is a testament to KTOO’s commitment to serving younger and more diverse audiences. “KXLL has been the only station in Juneau to grow its audience since 2018,” Snyder notes. She attributes much of that success to KTOO’s intentional focus on bringing in more Indigenous voices and reflecting the actual makeup of the local community. “Our music director [Chandre Iqugan Szafran], who is Inupiaq, has done incredible work curating content that reflects the diversity of our audience. She’s prioritized Indigenous voices and those of other minoritized people, and hosted conversations on air about how lived experiences shape art.”
Over the years, the station has worked to develop meaningful partnerships with the Lingít community, the original stewards of Juneau and Southeast Alaska, to ensure accurate pronunciation and representation in broadcasts and build cultural connections. KTOO staff, for instance, have taken Lingít language classes to better understand and pronounce place names, cultural terms, and people’s names. “When you’re in class with local culture bearers, learning the language alongside them, you automatically start to build deeper relationships,” Snyder explains. “That work has led directly to new content on the air — whether it’s story ideas, features, or interviews.”
One of KTOO’s most exciting initiatives is an ongoing collaboration with those Lingít culture bearers to turn traditional Lingít stories into radio plays. The project aims to bring these stories to a broader audience and create a corresponding curriculum for use in the local school district. “These stories are an essential part of the cultural fabric here,” Snyder says. “It’s such a powerful use of what public media can be in a community like ours — creating a platform for these voices to be heard and celebrated.”
This commitment to diverse and representative voices goes beyond just music. Since 2020, KTOO has partnered with Juneau’s Black Awareness Association to produce Culture Rich Conversations, a weekly radio show exploring the experiences of the Black community in Juneau. “That program has been incredibly meaningful,” says Snyder. “One of the hosts told us she’s creating the show she wishes she had when she was a young Black girl growing up in Juneau. For regular listeners, they’re hearing conversations they might not have had the opportunity to engage with otherwise.”
Both Snyder and Shoman acknowledge that there’s still work to be done in broadening KTOO’s audience and ensuring the station represents the full diversity of the community. “We’re always a work in progress,” Snyder says. “We’re always growing, always evolving, and always trying to do better. We don’t always get it right, but we actively try to listen and adapt.”
That process of listening and adaptation often takes place in everyday interactions with the community. “In a small town like Juneau, you’re constantly accountable to your audience,” Snyder notes. “You can’t go to the grocery store without bumping into someone who has feedback or ideas about what they’ve heard on the air.”
For Shoman, that direct connection with listeners is one of the most rewarding aspects of working in public media. “The beauty of public media in a place like Juneau is that we’re part of the community we serve,” he says. “When we talk about building community, we can see it, we can host it, and we can be a part of it. Whether it’s at an event like 50 Fest or just having a conversation at the farmer’s market, those personal interactions remind us why we do this work.” As KTOO looks ahead to its next 50 years, the station remains deeply committed to its mission of amplifying the voices of Juneau and serving as a platform for the rich cultural life of Alaska. “This is more than just a celebration of our past,” Shoman concludes. “It’s a celebration of the future we’re building together — one that’s more inclusive, more representative, and more connected to the community than ever before.”