Past News Items

Jess T. Town, 39, Choctaw Indian from Talihina, Okla., was today named Superintendent of the Rosebud Agency, Rosebud, His appointment is effective August 8. Town will move to this post from one as Area Field Representative of the Bureau in Riverside, Calif.

Town was graduated from Chilocco Indian School in Oklahoma in May 1950, and attended Phoenix College, Phoenix, Ariz. He began his Federal service in the Phoenix Indian School in 1954.

Award of a $491,000 contract for the construction of a dormitory and related facilities at the Wahpeton Indian School, Wahpeton, North Dakota, was announced today by the Department of the Interior. The successful bidder was Meide and Son, Inc., of Wahpeton. Eight higher bids ranging to $588,400 were received.

WASHINGTON, DC – In advance of the 5th White House Tribal Nations Conference, Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today announced a final rule that demonstrates the Obama Administration’s continuing commitment to restoring tribal homelands and furthering economic development on Indian reservations.

Four Navajo Indian tribal officials are in the lobby of the U. S. Department of the Interior building in Washington, D. C., this week to exhibit crafts produced under the Navajo Work Experience Program -- a tribal effort which provides constructive jobs and a pay envelope to people who, would otherwise have to depend upon welfare checks.

Begun nine months ago, the program has already provided 1,700 Navajos with jobs, a number expected to double within the next year. It operates across the reservation from the rim of the Grand Canyon eastward to Shiprock, New Mexico.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior John A. Carver, Jr., today instructed the heads of two Bureaus to take every action possible to reduce economic losses to the people of flood-damaged West Coast areas.

In a special memorandum to the Director of the Bureau of Land Management and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Mr. Carver said:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of the Obama Administration’s Generation Indigenous (“GenI”) initiative to remove barriers standing between Native youth and their opportunity to succeed, Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Kevin K.

James E. Hawkins, a former teacher and administrator in Indian and Eskimo schools, was named today to fill the long vacant key post of Director of Education for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

An exhibit of Eskimo Graphic Arts and Sculpture will be on display in Washington's Department of the Interior Art Galleries beginning Tuesday, November 8 through December 31. Featured will be the work of Canadian Eskimos from the famed Cape Dorset area, located at the southern tip of Baffin Island. Stone-cut prints and a variety of small sculptures will be shown. Hours for the exhibit, sponsored by the Center for Arts of Indian America, will be from 10:00 a.m. to 4: 00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced today that the Miccosukee Indian School (MIS) has received flexibility from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), to use a different definition of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) that meets their students’ unique academic and cultural needs. The Miccosukee Indian School in Florida is funded by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Education (BIE).

A suit in behalf of treaty fishing rights of Indian tribes in the State of Washington has been filled by the Department of Justice at the request of the Department of the Interior. The suit is similar to one filled two years ago in Oregon.

In announcing the filing, Secretary of the Interior Walter J. Hickel said, "The decision in the Oregon case has done much to clarify Indian fishing rights on the Columbia river. We hope this suit will have the same effect on fishing rights in the Puget Sound and Olympic Peninsula areas of the State of Washington."