Donna M. Loring is an elder and present council member of the Penobscot Indian Nation. She held the position of the Nation's Representative to the Maine State Legislature for over a decade. She authored and sponsored LD 291 An Act to Require Teaching Maine Native American History and Culture in Maine's Schools which Governor Angus King signed into law on June 14th 2001. The law is changing the way Maine views it's history. Loring is a graduate of the University of Maine at Orono where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Donna is the President of Seven Eagles Media productions, a Vietnam Veteran (Long Binh 1967-1968), and author of In the Shadow of the Eagle: A Tribal Representative in Maine, a journal of her experiences in the Maine State Legislature as a Non-voting Tribal Representative. She the author of the musical Glooskape Chronicles Creation and the Venetian Basket. Donna was featured in the Maine Sunday Telegram as one of ten women Making a Difference in Maine and making Maine a better place to live and hosts a monthly radio show, Wabanaki Windows on WERU Community Radio. The University of New England houses her papers and sponsors an annual lecture series in her name. Donna is a member of the Deborah Morton Society of the University of New England and a member of the International Women's Forum (IWF). In 2017, Donna was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Maine.
