MASSENA — An Ohio company was so impressed with a letter from a J.W. Leary Junior High School student that they provided the school with some of their products and
Helen Nez in her home in Blue Gap, Ariz. Image by Mary F. Calvert. United States, 2020.
Helen Nez was just a child when men from the mining companies asked her to carry around a small device that detects uranium while she was herding sheep near her home in Blue Gap, Ariz. When the device went off, she would put a stake in the ground at that location. The mining companies used the local Navajo people to detect the location of the uranium. All those stakes in the ground became the Claim 28 uranium mine site. She grew up a half mile from the mine.