Fundraiser brings in dollars for public television
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PABLO — Roy Bigcrane stood behind the director’s control panel during the second night of the live annual fundraiser for KSKC-TV on Thursday and gave the signal to begin broadcasting to televisions across the Flathead Indian Reservation.
Corwin (Corky) Clairmont sat down to paint as the broadcast began. On the air, he worked on a peaceful watercolor painting of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s pipeline protest. He donated the painting to the auction.
He said the people were peaceful when he was at the protest gathering photos for his paintings, but armed cars and barbed wire brought in to intimidate the protestors made it less than peaceful. He tried to keep the original theme of the protest in his painting.
On the second night, he had the backdrop finished with rolling earth colored hills, the smallest construction crew could be seen in distance, an airplane flew through the sky, teepees and people were the last to be painted in the camp.
“This is what you would see if you were over there,” he said. “It is a peaceful protest, a sacred place.”
He is also working on a series of paintings that deal with the pipeline issue when he is not on television.
During the fundraiser, volunteers took in-house bids and worked the phones to take calls from people hoping to get the highest bid on items like Clairmont’s painting, fishing poles, beaded jewelry, photographs, and other items. The event raised about $6,600 this year.
Malakai Webster, 8, helped auction off the mystery box. It turns out it was also his Birthday so he got an on-air rendition of “Happy Birthday” from the crowd inside the Three Wolves Deli at SKC. Bigcrane talked about the importance of local public television before starting the program. He said important shows go on the air every day and many have a local focus, including documentaries, language programs, and news broadcasts.
“If funding isn’t available for the program, a lot of shows would be missed,” he said.
Viewer contributions, underwriting, and contributions by Salish Kootenai College and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes support KSKC-TV, he said. The program doesn’t receive federal, state or local tax support for ongoing operation.
Bigcrane would like to get local schools involved with KSKC. A Polson school puts on a news program, but he would like to see more.
In years past, different schools would put shows together but teachers involved in the project retired, funding for equipment wasn’t available, and the shows were lost, but, he said, it’s time to bring them back.
Frank Tyro ran the fundraising project in the past, and now that he is retired, Bigcrane is filling in. He started working with the TV station back when it first started in 1988. He took a video production class in college at the Haskell Indian Junior College, now known as Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas. He later took classes at SKC, and Tyro hired him to help with the media center when it began.
“I watched it develop,” he said.
Bigcrane said that it takes a lot of volunteers with different skills to put the fundraiser together and he appreciated them all.
