In spite of a day that seemed "like gremlins had come to visit," KBBI-AM 890 Public Radio came within 90 percent of making its pledge-drive target Friday.

Earlier in the week, the station experienced mechanical problems separating its sound from station KDLL 91.9 FM in Kenai. Several other fund-raisers and local events also were happening on Friday. And shortly before noon KBBI and other Homer areas were struck with repeated electrical outages due to a faulty transformer (see related story, page 3).

"We were being tested by adversity," Jonathan Coke, KBBI development director, said.

An excellent pre-drive response helped boost the drive, with 100 pledges mailed in prior to Friday. Of the 360 needed, Coke had counted 316 received as of Monday morning.

"Considering the four power outages throughout the day, that was a remarkable response, but it still doesn't get us to where we need to be," he said. "We're hoping a post-drive response will push us closer to the goal."

General Manager Dave Anderson agreed with Coke about the impact to the one-day pledge drive caused by loss of electricity. Not only did he worry about cutting into the station's self-imposed 12-hour minimal interruption to programming, he also feared for damage to equipment due to power fluctuations.

"It was quite the day," Anderson said. 'We can roll with one, we can roll with two, but four (outages) takes the wind out of your sails a little bit. Fortunately we were able to bring it back to life every time. I feel like we handled the situation pretty well from a fund-raising standpoint and technically."

The loss of a scheduled program opened up an additional hour for the drive. Coke and Anderson took advantage of the extra time.

"We had a lot of response during that time," Coke said.

To narrow the gap between pledges received and pledges needed, Coke will begin reviewing Friday's data to make sure everything is accounted for, send acknowledgements of contributions and send envelopes to people that asked for a reminder.

"We really do need to get 100 percent of our goal," he said.

In addition to mailing in pledges, individuals also can call the station at 235-7721 or pledge online at www.kbbi.org.

"We could certainly use 50 or 60 more pledges, but we expect that some of that will come flowing in post-drive with people walking in and sending in renewal forms that they received in the mail," Anderson said. "I feel pretty good about it all, but certainly hope those folks that didn't manage to call in with their pledges will take a few minutes to do that."

McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.