Past News Items

Originally Published by: The Cherokee Phoenix

By: Tara Katuk Sweeney, U.S. Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs

WASHINGTON - Interior Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced that he has signed a reconsidered final determination which declines to acknowledge the Chinook Indian Tribe / Chinook Nation (formerly the Chinook Indian Tribe, Inc.) of Chinook, Washington, as an Indian tribe for federal purposes. This decision concludes that the Chinook petitioner did not demonstrate that it meets all seven mandatory criteria to be acknowledged as a tribe with a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett reported today that 119 Indian children were placed for adoption during 1967 through the Indian Adoption Project. The program is sponsored by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Child Welfare League of America.

The number of children placed in 1967 almost doubled that of the previous year and compares with a total of 400 children placed during the nine years of the cooperative project program.

WASHINGTON - Interior Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced his selection of Jeanette Hanna, currently Director of Planning, Budget and Management Support for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), as his choice to be the new director of the Bureau's Eastern Oklahoma Regional Office located in Muscogee, Okla. The appointment is effectively immediately.

­A test group of young teacher interns -- most of them Indians and all of them undergraduates -- is breaking new ground to find ways that will motivate Indian pupils to stay in school and learn more.

In the process, the.20 interns are developing ideas that may stimulate more young people like themselves to stay in college, complete their teacher training, and go out and teach more Indian children,

What they and their professional mentors learn as they go along may prove to be valuable to disadvantaged non-Indians facing similar problems.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has received $2.1 billion in funding for FY2001, a 15% increase over FY2000, the largest increase in several years. The BIA administers programs for and provides services to federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and individuals. BIA programs receiving significant increases include new school construction, trust fund management and law enforcement.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today award of a $2,369,756.55 contract to construct 25.076 miles of 34-foot finished width, two-lane highway, between Lechee Rock and Kaibito, Ariz., on the Navajo Reservation.

The work to be done under this contract and under two other contracts previously awarded will leave only 20 miles of construction needed to complete the connection between Page, Ariz., and State Route 164 south of Shonto, Ariz.

Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs, Kevin Gover announces that there is currently $59 million dollars available in loan guaranty authority to assist tribal and individual economic development projects and business ventures through the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Indian Loan Guaranty Program.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert Lo Bennett today announced preparation of a roll of Upper and Lower Chehalis Indians of Washington State entitled to share in a $754,000 Indian Claims Commission judgment.

An amendment to the Code of Federal Regulations provides that "all persons who were alive on Oct. 24, 1967, who establish that they are descendants of members of the Upper and Lower Chehalis Tribes as they existed in 1855 shall be entitled to be enrolled to share in the distribution of the judgment funds."

Charles Chi bitty of Tulsa Oklahoma, the last surviving member of the Comanche Code Talkers, will receive the Citizen's Award for Exceptional Service from the Department of the Interior in a ceremony that will take place in the Hall of Heroes at the Pentagon on November 30, 1999. The. Ceremony is to honor his role as a Comanche Code Talker during World War II where he and his fellow Comanche Indians were instrumental in saving many lives during the Normandy Invasion.