George Spears helped troubled children

Bill McAuliffe, Star Tribune
Last update: October 03, 2006 – 12:27 AM

Even as a young Macalester College student, George Spears was looking for ways to enhance his strengths as a man of his people. "He was clear about what his role was," said the Rev. John E. Robertson, a priest at the Bishop Whipple Mission at the Lower Sioux Indian Community in Morton, Minn., who was a friend of Spears' older brother and a fellow student at Macalester three decades ago.

"I don't like the term 'bridge-builder,' " Robertson added. "He was a man who knew who he was, and wanted to provide the best he could from a system that probably didn't understand completely who he was and the people he represented."

Spears, a member of the Red Lake band of Chippewa who went on to become a social worker with Indian children in troubled homes in Minnesota and the Dakotas, died Sunday after suffering a heart attack while running the Twin Cities Marathon. The lifelong runner, jewelry-maker, advanced karate practitioner, father of seven and foster parent of eight was 49.

Spears had been a runner since attending high school in New Mexico, said his son, George Jr., who also ran Sunday's Twin Cities marathon but didn't learn that his father had died until after the race.

He said his father had run marathons in less than 3 hours.

"He told my mom [Sunday] he was trying to beat me," George Spears Jr. said Monday. "I rolled my ankle in the middle of the race, and he probably could have. I knew something was wrong; I just kept looking back."

George Spears Jr. said his father and all his four sons often ran together. They also had plans to go deer hunting in the coming weeks near Red Lake.

"He was a really good hunter with gun and bow," he said. "He pretty much taught us all about tracking. He was very talented at the more traditional kinds of things. He kept a real traditional life."

Professionally, George Spears Sr. worked to place Indian children in stable families under the terms of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Sometimes that meant working with birth families to keep custody of their own kids, Robertson said. Spears' approach to his work, Robertson said, was the same as it was in his jewelry making.

"Whatever turquoise he got, that determined his silver," Robertson said. "And he didn't cut the kids, or put them into anything they weren't. He'd build their showcase around them. He took and created beauty from what was presented, what was natural."

George Spears Jr. also noted that his father was passionate about tribal politics, even running once for tribal treasurer without winning.

"He was a servant for his people, I guess," George Spears Jr. said. "That's pretty much how he lived his life."

Bill McAuliffe • mcaul@startribune.com