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Profile of Kirk Anderson, Sun Sounds Volunteer

"Sun Sounds is my Joy"

Kirk Anderson remembers where he was when he heard the news of the outbreak of World War II.  He remembers the tears in his mother’s eyes as she told him, “We’re going to war; we’re doing it again.”  The day after his high school graduation, he enlisted into the Navy and soon after was sent overseas as a mine sweeper.  Of this he says, “When you are seventeen you do not know what you are doing, what things can kill you, but I could barely wait to join.”  So began Kirk Anderson’s interest and involvement with history, a public history that he experienced on a very personal level. 

After his tour of duty, he returned home and became a disc jockey; but he had a great passion for history, for the events that create our world and its destiny.  It was during this time that he received the Time-Life volumes comprising the World War II years and began increasing his historical knowledge.  He laments that too many young people "do not even know where Iraq is, much less why we are engaged in the current situation in the Middle East.”  He's made it his personal mission to bring information to people.  He has done this in part by recording textbooks for the blind while living in Boston and then, after moving to Tucson a few years ago, by becoming a Sun Sounds volunteer.  With his resonant baritone, he began reading the newspaper, community calendar, and historical novels for the print-impaired.  Not one to sit still, he also incubated his plan for a new show and began recording Time Capsules from the books in his library.  In between recording times, he speaks to church groups, senior centers, and libraries, giving talks about Sun Sounds of Arizona, claiming, “Sun Sounds is my joy, I can’t do enough.”