Long story short, it all started when former Arirang radio host, Genie Hahn, contacted Dan Nabben to do an interview for Arirang leading up to the Christmas Orphanage Drive in December 2011. That interview led to an appearance on Arirang for a New Year’s Eve show co-hosted by Lisa Kelley (in Seoul) and Genie Hahn (in Jeju). Susan Shain accompanied Dan and they were joined by Aida Matulevičiūtė in the studio to add some Jeju flavour and commentary to the show. If you listen to the broadcast you can catch where Dan and Susan were trying to plug Jeju Furey but just couldn’t quite get the conversation to go in that direction. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssLC7_wLM_Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4_zMkP8hNU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZMJ52bN61g
A few weeks after the show, Dan sent an email to Arirang that was addressed to Lisa Kelley and acted as an introduction to Jeju Furey and its cause. It included the MBC-TV piece on BVB 6 (props to Kendra Pugh, once again) as well as links to Tracie Barrett’s article for Yonghap news, Nicole Erwin’s piece for Jeju Weekly, Kristyn Taylor’s article for the Korea Herald, 이미리’s piece for 제주소리, and the Facebook group page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9SgAikTeDQ
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/n_feature/2011/05/04/48/4901000000AEN20110504009600315F.HTML
http://www.jejuweekly.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=1221
http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20120418001273
http://www.jejusori.net/news/quickViewArticleView.html?idxno=100243
A couple months later, around March or April, Cade Akers was interviewed for Arirang’s Morning Call show. The interview went well and Cade was asked if he knew of anyone else on Jeju that might be interested in being on the show, so Cade recommended Dan. Arirang contacted Dan and another interview was done. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO40InthmmU&feature=youtu.be
Afterwards, Dan asked Morning Call writer, Tina Shin, if she could forward an email (the one sent a couple months earlier) on to Lisa Kelley directly. Tina agreed and shortly thereafter Lisa contacted Dan and another interview was setup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aUnonXUgRY&feature=youtu.be
Following the interviews, Lisa made an offer to Dan in which he would be on the show twice a week and talk of upcoming events on Jeju for about 8 minutes. Dan couldn’t help but recommended Troy who agreed. And all of this led to Motorbiking the Mainland 2012 (see the summary of that event below).
At this point Lisa became heavily involved in Jeju Furey in terms of finding ways to help promote it, raise money for it, and improve its events. She met with Troy and Dan several times as her work requires her to come to Jeju one to three times a month as the host of a TV quiz show, for conferences, concerts, and other events. She also treated Dan and took him to a variety of places where he could meet other people who would be interested in helping Jeju Furey. In particular this occurred while he was in Seoul and was able to meet with Han Jee'yeon (한지연) for the first time.
Lisa made an appearance during BVB Clinic 1, donated hundreds of thousands of won to Jeju Furey, raised hundreds of thousands more, got Troy and Dan on TV to plug Jeju Furey as well as several radio appearances, and introduced them to several important people in Korean who are in positions able to help Jeju Furey, and many of those people already have. She was also a fantastic host to Troy, Dan, Sara Sokola, Ryan Brown, and Matt Leman when they were all in Seoul for Seoul Furey BVB 1.
She has been quite the force since ‘coming aboard’ in May, and we are all incredibly grateful that she has taken on interest in our organization.
Thanks, Lisa.