ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The town of Whale Pass, Alaska, is remote and tiny. It has fewer than a hundred year-round residents and no grocery store. But in the past few years, it's gotten a new distinction. It offers certified Taekwondo as a school sport. That's all due to the passion of one 12-year-old boy, and as Michael Fanelli reports, it may wind up saving the school from closing.
DOMETRIUS HILL: Ready. Go.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: One, Sir. Two, Sir. Three, Sir. Four, Sir.
MICHAEL FANELLI, BYLINE: On a big-screen TV, Senior Master Dometrius Hill zooms in from Texas. He's leading a class of students aged 9 to 15. The internet connection starts to break up.
HILL: (Inaudible) two. (Inaudible) number two, step up.
FANELLI: But 12-year-old black belt Jesse Dempsey understands him just fine.
JESSE DEMPSEY: Sir. Front row, step back with the right foot, left low block.
MICHELLE DEMPSEY: He froze again.
FANELLI: That's Jesse's mom, Michelle Dempsey.
DEMPSEY: We apologize for the technical difficulties, but this is a day in the life of Whale Pass Taekwondo.
HILL: Exactly.
FANELLI: This year, only seven students attended this K through 12 school in Whale Pass, and all but one are in the Taekwondo program. Master Hill says last year, Alaska wasn't pictured on the regional Taekwondo competition map because there were no schools that participated. This year, it is.
HILL: And just to see the pride and the smile on their faces, hey, we're on the map. We're on the map. I said, OK, now you got to go show them that you deserve to stay on the map.
FANELLI: The Whale Pass kids have taken that to heart. Four of them got first place in various events at a tournament in Idaho last October. And Jesse's mom, Michelle, says the Taekwondo world has taken notice.
DEMPSEY: It's really cool to see these kids from these little, tiny communities that nobody has heard of go down to the lower 48 and - forgive me for saying it - kick butt and take names.
FANELLI: It all started when the Dempseys moved to town a couple years ago. Jesse had been training with Hill in Texas, and he didn't want to give that up.
DEMPSEY: That's who he looks up to. So I wanted to keep that dynamic going for him.
FANELLI: They decided to keep doing lessons on Zoom, and Jesse's peers quickly noticed the novel activity.
DEMPSEY: He was practicing on the playground at recess, and some of the other kids on there were like, well, we want to do that too.
FANELLI: Hill invited the other kids to join in on the lessons, and they soon formed the only certified Songahm Taekwondo studio in Alaska.
Do you like living in Whale Pass?
JESSE: I do. The only problem with living up here is probably the cost and the isolation.
FANELLI: As you can hear, Jesse's pretty mature for a 12-year-old.
JESSE: It's very beautiful. There's really nice people and nice, fresh air. You can see the night sky very well compared to down south.
FANELLI: If you ask his mom, that maturity is a product of Taekwondo. Whale Pass is hoping Taekwondo might be able to help them, as well.
ROD MORRISON: Whale Pass is a community that students are kind of in a shortage now.
FANELLI: Whale Pass School Superintendent Rod Morrison says if they can't get at least 10 students enrolled in the school by fall, they'll lose funding from the state. So they're creating a magnet school to draw curious students from elsewhere in the country.
MORRISON: We're hoping to attract some students from the lower 48 that want to come out and get Alaska culture and Alaska studies, and also the Taekwondo as well.
FANELLI: If they don't succeed, the school would have to close. But in the meantime, four students are getting ready to compete in the regional Taekwondo championships in Oregon, which start on Saturday. For NPR News, I'm Michael Fanelli in Whale Pass.
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