More than 40 members of the local logging community met for a "family reunion" at the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in July. The forum was part of a series sponsored by the Living Biographies Initiative, a local video history project of KEET-TV.

Armed with photos to illustrate their stories, the loggers introduced themselves and shared anecdotes about their lives in the forest industry. Jan Kraepelien, the project director, and I told the group about the project and showed some film clips from a recent interview with Dan Raymond, former district manager for the State Comp. Insurance Company and the recorder for the Retired Loggers Club. Many of the people who were present agreed to be interviewed individually for the project. The project is not limited to loggers. With grant funding from the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund, the California Council for the Humanities and the Humboldt Area Foundation, the KEET project will conduct about 200 interviews with a wide range of community members.

Rooted in the local American Indian tradition of elders handing down history in the form of stories to the next generations, each interview features three generations. In addition to the elder, there is a high-school-aged student who is trained as a videographer and a volunteer interviewer who is an adult from the elder's community or family. The interviews are edited into half-hour television programs that air on KEET the first Wednesday of each month at 7:30 p.m.

In addition, short clips from the interviews will begin appearing on all of our local stations soon. The final interviews will eventually be archived for future generations of historians. KEET is recruiting elders who are willing to be interviewed for the project. Any local residents who are older than 65 and have lived in Humboldt or Del Norte counties most of their lives are eligible to be nominated. Interviewers and videographers are also being sought. If you would like to nominate someone or volunteer to help, contact me at 707-445-4670, or Chag Lowry, the Native American coordinator at 707-826-0335. Shelley Mitchell is Living Biographies administrator.