Tomaquag Museum's Lorén Spears to be inducted into R.I. Heritage Hall of Fame

Yahoo

30-04-2025

Colleen CroninecoRI
In 2019, Lorén Spears, executive director of the Tomaquag Museum, accepted Chief Sachem Ninigret's posthumous induction to the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame.
Ninigret led the Narragansett and Niantic peoples in the 1600s when the Europeans arrived, bringing disease and violence.
To honor him, Spears, Narragansett Indian Tribe, 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' semiquincentennial 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.