Tomaquag Museum’s Lorén Spears to Be Inducted into R.I. Heritage Hall of Fame
By Colleen Cronin / ecoRI News staff
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| Lorén Spears will be inducted to the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame early next month. (Courtesy of the Tomaquag Museum) |
Ninigret led
the Narragansett and Niantic peoples in the 1600s when the Europeans arrived,
bringing disease and violence.
To honor him, Spears performed a ceremony with her
brother-in-law, who sang and played drums. Ninigret’s award is displayed at
the Tomaquag
Museum, so others can learn about him.
Six years later, it’s Spears’ turn to be honored as a 2025
Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame inductee.
The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame was founded in 1965
to celebrate “any individual who has brought credit to Rhode Island, brought
Rhode Island into prominence, and contributed to the history and heritage of
the state.” Inductees are required to have been born in the state or to have
lived, studied, or worked here for a significant amount of time.
In a recent phone interview, after Spears described
attending the 2019 awards, she added “to then later be honored in the same
establishment, I think that’s extremely special.”
Spears is no stranger to prestigious awards. In 2016, she
accepted the National Medal for Museum and Library Service for the
Tomaquag Museum, an organization that she has helped grow since she took the
helm.
“When I came on as the executive director, I was the only staff person,” Spears said, “and over those years, I’ve grown the staff and the capacity of the organization. And we do so many things.”
“Our team is just amazing at the museum, and any award that
I’m getting, I couldn’t achieve any of it without our team, our board, our
staff, our volunteers,” she added.
The museum, established in
1958, is the only one of its kind in Rhode Island dedicated explicitly to
telling the stories and histories of Indigenous people, run by Indigenous
people.
While it began as a way to catalog history, its mission has
expanded significantly over the years under Spears, whose background is in
education.
The museum provides “evergreen resources” for teachers,
librarians, and families, she said.
For example, the museum has had an exhibit about Ellison
“Tarzan” Brown, a two-time Boston Marathon winner and Olympic runner and a
fellow Heritage Hall of Fame inductee.
Not only does the museum keep an archive of thousands of
written and physical materials about Indigenous people from New England, it
also offers a wide array of programming to share information with tribal
members and the broader community.
The museum hosts monthly lunches, free and open to the
public, on a range of topics. Members also hold various Thanksgiving ceremonies
throughout the year, an annual honoring, and various talks and classes. When
speaking on the phone with ecoRI News, Spears said her son had been leading a
net-making class that day.
Providing future generations with a foundation to continue
to learn Indigenous ways is a major goal for Spears.
“I’m always thinking, in the work that I do, about
generations from now,” she said, “and I thought, well, for generations that
come to see someone from their own community, from the 20th and 21st centuries
… that would be impactful and hopefully positive for folks to see someone from
their own community in this modern day be inducted into the Hall of Fame.”
Spears said there are a lot of plans for the future of the
museum, most importantly a new facility. Hopefully, she said, there will be
more information and more complete designs by the fall.
The museum also has a new exhibit coming up to mark the
United States’ semi-quincentennial coming up in 2026.
The exhibit will “tell stories about our service and the
Revolutionary War, stories about what was going on with our people in that time
period, the stories of resilience and sovereignty,” Spears said.
Getting recognized by the Heritage Hall of Fame this year,
Spears hopes, will bring more attention and open up more possibilities for the
museum’s future.
“It’s lovely and special to get an award, I’m bringing my
family and such,” she said, “but it’s really about the impact later that I’m
hoping will leverage equity and opportunity for our communities and respect for
the work that we do.”
Spears is among nine inductees set to join the Heritage Hall
of Fame this year, including 2012 Miss Universe Olivia Culpo; the dean of Rhode
Island newspaper publishing, John Howell; and former state Speaker of the House
Matthew Smith.
The induction ceremony is scheduled to be held at Rhodes on
the Pawtuxet in Cranston on May 3.
