Penobscot Nation member receives tourism award

OLD TOWN – Theresa Secord, basket maker, member of the Penobscot Nation, and founder and executive director of the Maine Indian Basket Makers Alliance, was presented with the Maine Tourism Award for Arts and Heritage, as well as the Governor’s Award for Tourism Excellence, during a ceremony at the annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism recently in South Portland.

The awards, which are sponsored by the Maine Office of Tourism and the Maine Tourism Commission, are presented to those who lead by example. Nominated by their peers in the tourism industry, the individuals and businesses honored at the conference luncheon were selected in a juried process.

Gov. John Baldacci presented Secord with a slate rendering of the state of Maine, hand crafted in Maine from Monson slate.

In nominating Secord, the Maine Arts Commission stated that Secord helped to form the Maine Indian Basket Makers Alliance in 1993 and is credited with reviving an imperiled art. As director of MIBA, Secord has overseen the opening of an elegant gallery and shop in Old Town and published an 86-page guide to basketry and other traditional American Indian crafts in Maine.

Through her efforts, the sale value of ash and sweet-grass baskets of the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes has increased nearly 10-fold. In addition, MIBA sponsors a yearlong apprenticeship program, holds several basket weaving classes throughout the year, and regularly collaborates on a number of important annual events.

Secord was also the recipient of the international Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life in 2003. The prize, sponsored by the Women’s World Summit Foundation, was presented to her in Geneva, Switzerland, at the Palais Wilson, headquarters for the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. She was the first U.S. citizen to garner this honor.