April 24, 2025

NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State University honored two visiting alumni with a blanket ceremony as part of the inaugural NSU Indigenous Studies Minor Award, following a lecture they presented on April 23.

Historian Dr. Robert B. Caldwell Jr. and writer Thomas Parrie were recognized for contributions to American Indian Studies in Louisiana and their work collecting and editing the Choctaw-Apache Voices Series.

A blanket wrapping ceremony is rooted in traditions from many tribes and honors a person for significant achievements that benefit their communities. It is a non-religious ceremony in which members of the community wrap the honoree in a blanket in the presence of a community. The blankets were presented by faculty from the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Minor, which is part of the School of Social Sciences and Applied Programs, along with the Gail Metoyer Jones Center, the Native American Student Association and the Department of English, Languages and Culture Studies, the department from which Caldwell and Parrie graduated.

Parrie earned an M.A. in English in 2010 at NSU and an MFA in Poetry at McNeese State University in 2015. His previous published works include Toledo Rez & Other Myths, a poetry volume. He has been an Indigenous Writer in Residence at the School for Advanced Research in New Mexico. Currently, he writes and teaches in the English and World Languages Department at Southeastern Louisiana University.

Caldwell earned an M.A. from NSU in Heritage Resource Management and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2018. His published works include Choctaw-Apache Foodways, for which he was recognized by the Louisiana Folklife Commission as a Culture Bearer. He is a founder and active member of Ho Minti Society, a nonprofit dedicated to the vitality of Choctaw-Apache culture, and has led the Choctaw-Apache Youth Culture Camp for the past two years. He teaches at the University of Buffalo in the Indigenous Studies Department and will be teaching a class on American Indian History at NSU this semester.

Information on the American Indian and Indigenous Studies minor and other programs available through NSU’s School of Social Sciences and Applied Programs is available at https://www.nsula.edu/ssap/.

Honoring historian Dr. Robert Caldwell, center, were Dr. Allison Rittmeyer, coordinator of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of English, Languages and Culture Studies, left, and Dr. Heather Salter-Dromm, instructor.