Angie Owensby sat down with Velma Whitebear recently to hear about her life and work. Here is an excerpt:

Velma works with Mother Lode Job Connection, which provides employment training for American Indians Alaskan natives, Hawaiian natives. She advocates freedom of religion for indians and is a board member of CHIPS (Calaveras Healthy Impact Products Solutions). She's lived here in Sheep Ranch, Valicido, and Angels Camp. She's been with the community for about 25 years. Positives about Blue Mountain are that it's a friendly small community. The negatives are bad business, logging, hard to make ends meet.