In high school, Spear maintained a 4.0 average, took every science course the school offered, and participated in as many extracurricular activities as she could. At her high school graduation, attended by Burr and two other lab members, Spear received more than half of the 20 scholarships and awards given out.

Teacher Deeanna Williams got special permission for Spear to take her statistics course at the local tribal college when Spear was still a high school freshman. Spear aced the course. But Williams says she admires Spear for more than her intellect. Though her family has struggled with alcoholism and other challenges, “She'd stay so positive,” says Williams. “Sometimes students were mean to Cinnamon because she doesn't look Native American”—she has light-colored hair and fair skin—but when those same students needed help, say, with college applications, she'd help them. “I almost couldn't believe she would do that, but she'd say, `Well, this is what's important.'”

It was also important to Spear that she take the risk to leave the reservation and attend a school on the East Coast, in a state she'd never visited, to expand horizons—for herself, and for many others back home. As she reminds herself with a quote stuck to her computer monitor: I'm doing what I'm doing for those who can't. One of those who can't is her best friend. They swore they'd attend college together. “Now she works at the casino and has a baby.” Another is her older brother, whose summer research experience in 2001 inspired Spear to apply to a program herself. “Now he has a baby and no school and no job.”

She also wants to inspire the kindergartners on the reservation, who are less than half as likely as their white counterparts to get a college degree one day. “I want to get them thinking early about what they want to be when they grow up.” More broadly, she wants to allay the fears of any kid who is anxious about leaving home. “I was scared,” she admits. “I wasn't sure I could survive at Dartmouth, coming from Lame Deer High School. But I did, and I want to tell everybody they can do it too.”

Burr is confident that Spear will realize her ultimate career goal and, quite likely, all others. “I introduced her to someone the other day, noting that Cinnamon wants to be a doctor. She corrected me, saying, `Cinnamon is going to be a doctor.'”

		Cinnamon Spear is a gifted runner—she ran every event on her high school track team. Last year, she participated in the Fort Robinson Memorial Breakout Run, held to honor 149 Cheyenne ancestors who escaped from captivity in Fort Robinson, Nebraska, in January 1879, to return home. Most were captured or killed; only a few made the 400-mile journey back to Montana. Spear and about 90 others ran the route in relays over five bitter-cold days. A history of the run, and Spear's thoughts on it, are recounted in chapter 5 of Sole Sisters: Stories of Women and Running, published in paperback (Andrews McMeel) in March 2006.

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