Column: Finding our place in history

I met Aletha Tom a few weeks ago when I was writing a story about the organized effort to refurbish the “S” for Stewart painted on the hillside above the former American Indian boarding school.
She graduated from the school in 1965 but didn't return until many years later, after she'd gotten married and had kids of her own.
Passing through Carson City, she took a spontaneous detour to her alma mater. As she walked onto the grounds of the old Stewart Indian School, she told me, the present faded away.