Past News Items

LOWER BRULE INDIANS TO BE TRAINED--The CalDak Electronics Corporation of Pierre, S. D., recently negotiated a $6,950 contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide on-the-job training for a group of South Dakota Indians. The trainees, 16 Sioux from the Lower Brule Reservation, will learn to assemble electronics components while employed in the company's plant on their reservation. The opportunity to learn while earning is a part of the Bureau's employment assistance program aimed at expanding job opportunities for reservation Indians.

The Indian Health Service and the Department of the Interior will hold ten tribal listening sessions across Indian Country to seek input on how the agencies can most effectively work within American Indian and Alaska Native communities to prevent suicide. American Indians and Alaska Natives have a suicide rate 72 percent higher than the general U.S. population.

“We are very concerned by the ongoing tragedy of suicide in Indian Country,” said IHS Director Yvette Roubideaux, M.D., M.P.H. “We know the consequences of suicide are devastating to our families and tribal communities.”

One little, two little, three little Indians--and 206 more--are brightening the homes and lives of 172 American families, mostly non-Indians, who have taken the Indian waifs as their own.

A total of 209 Indian children have been adopted during the past seven years through the Indian Adoption Project, a cooperative effort of the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Child Welfare League of America Adoptions are arranged through customary court procedures.

The rate of Indian adoptions is increasing. There were 49 in 1965, compared to 35 in 1964.

Washington -- Assistant Secretary–Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk on August 6, 2010, issued a proposed finding not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Central Band of Cherokee (CBC) (Petitioner #227) as an Indian tribe. The petitioner, located in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, has approximately 407 members. The evidence shows the petitioner is a voluntary association formed in 2000 of individuals who claim but have not documented Indian ancestry.

American Indian art--just now becoming widely recognized in the United States--has already found a solid niche abroad.

From the arts and crafts markets of the Southwest, the Plains, Oklahoma, and Alaska, a collection of these "cultural ambassadors" have been touring the world under the joint auspices of the Interior Department's Indian Arts And Crafts Board, the United States Information Agency, and the State Department.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that he has named Michael S. Black as Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Black, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, had been serving as the acting BIA Director since March 18, 2010. He takes over from Jerold L. “Jerry” Gidner who is now the Special Counselor in the Office of the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs. Black’s appointment became effective on April 25, 2010.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today issued the following statement on the restoration of Fort McDowell in Arizona:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that he has named Bartholomew “Bart” Stevens as Acting Director of the Bureau of Indian Education while the process for finding a permanent director continues. The temporary appointment became effective February 2. The vacancy announcement for the post opened last November and closed on February 1.

The States we know as Nevada, Utah, and Colorado were once the hunting and warring grounds of numerous Indian tribes. Their stories are told in an illustrated, 24-page booklet just issued by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs -- Indians of the Lower Plateau.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs Director Michael S. Black today announced that he has named Bryan Rice deputy bureau director of the BIA’s Office of Trust Services at the bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Rice, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, had been serving as the OTS’s assistant director for resource protection since August 2009. His appointment became effective on October 23, 2011.