Latest news with #TomaquagMuseum
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Tomaquag Museum's Lorén Spears to be inducted into R.I. Heritage Hall of Fame
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.
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Who is in the running to be next RI historian laureate? For now, it's a secret
Eight Rhode Islanders have applied to become the state's next historian laureate, but their identities will not be made public until after a winner is selected, the secretary of state's office said Monday. Patrick Conley, Rhode Island's first and only historian laureate, did not seek to be reappointed when his term expired Feb 1. Secretary of State Gregg Amore is holding an open selection process for students of history interested in taking up the volunteer role and the deadline to apply was last Friday. Faith Chybowski, spokeswoman for Amore, on Monday said eight people had applied, but declined to release their names until the new laureate is selected "to protect the integrity of the application review process." "We want to ensure the review committee is basing their recommendation on the application materials that were provided at the time of submission and in accordance with the guidelines outlined on our site," Chybowski wrote. For an unpaid and fairly obscure role, the state historian laureate has been a political hot potato in recent years, in part due to divided opinions about Conley, 86, who has held the role since 2012. A lawyer, former history professor and real estate investor known for working the Providence tax sale market, Conley has opined on a number of sensitive cultural issues, including the legacy of Christopher Columbus, and defended the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame's induction of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. In 2020, then secretary of state Nellie Gorbea, who was eying a run for governor, reappointed Conley without publicly announcing it or soliciting competing bids. Amore plans to select the next laureate after getting a recommendation from a review committee that is going through the applications. The committee is made up of Lorén Spears, executive director of the Tomaquag Museum; Theresa Moore, president of T-Time Productions; C. Morgan Grefe, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Historical Society and Rob Traverse Senior Advisor Director of Civic Programming and Special Projects in Amore's office. Chybowski said no firm timeline has been set for when a selection for new historian laureate will be made. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI's historian laureate position is up for grabs. Who wants it?
