Congratulations to Sisseton Waphpeton College Alumni  LaVerne G. Whitebear! 

Last spring, SWC student LaVerne Whitebear earned the SDSU Emerging Tribal Writer Award for her submission of prose poems which embody themes of traditional art forms, place-based writing, MMIW, and indigenous legacies. Whitebear is an enrolled member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine Sioux (Pabaksa) from northeast Montana. She currently resides in the Enemy Swim District of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate on the Lake Traverse Reservation. A Behavioral Health and General Studies major at SWC, LaVerne received an Indigenous Visionaries fellowship whereby she incorporated Dakota floral design within her traditional quillwork as a means for trauma healing. She recently received a Cobell Scholarship for her efforts. Her Dakota name is Warrior Heart Woman.