Past News Items

Award of a $68,257.15 contract for the construction or a road and bridge on the Bad River Indian Reservation, Ashland County, Wisconsin, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs Director W. Patrick Ragsdale today announced that he has named Omar C. Bradley as the Regional Director for the BIA’s Navajo Regional Office in Gallup, N.M., which serves the 16 million­ acre Navajo Reservation located in western New Mexico, northeastern Arizona and southern Utah. Mr. Bradley, a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, had been serving as the acting regional director since May 2006. His appointment was effective February 4, 2007.

President Ford will meet with more than 200 leaders of the American Indian community at the White House Friday afternoon (July 16), Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

It will be the first time a President of the United States has met with such a broad representation of the Indian leadership.

Award of a $275,000 contract for the construction of school facilities at Jones Ranch, approximately 12 miles southwest of Gallup on the Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced today that Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Carl Artman will be leaving the Department of the Interior effective May 23, 2008.

"Throughout your tenure, I have appreciated your able insight as we have worked to address important issues in Indian Country," Kempthorne said in a letter to Artman. "The Indian Modernization Initiative, developed and launched under Carl's leadership, has upgraded communications between tribal leaders and the Department on a number of priority issues."

More authority for the Johnson-O' Malley program -- by which American Indians in public schools get special help from the Bureau of Indian Affairs -- may be placed in the hands of Johnson-O' Malley parent committees that must approve special need programs for eligible Indians submitted by public school districts, Morris Thompson, Commissioner of Indian Affairs indicated today.

Award of three contracts totaling $1,024,915.10 for road improvement work on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona and in Utah near the "Four Corners" area, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

WASHINGTON – The Interior Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason will visit the Hopi Tribe of Arizona on September 1 to meet with Hopi Chairman Wayne Taylor and tribal council members, as well as school officials and students of the tribe’s seven Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)-funded schools who have met their Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirement under the No Child Left Behind Act for a second year in a row. The Hopi Tribe is one of several federally recognized tribes who have multiple BIA-funded schools on their reservations.

Ten young men from Alaska--five Indians and five Eskimos--will soon move into technical jobs in the space exploration program as a result of training received under auspices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of the Interior reported today.

Award of a $443,181.87 contract for the construction of 14.375 miles of highway on the Navajo Indian Reservation in the Apache County, Arizona area was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project will provide an all-weather highway on a section of Route 8, which runs north and south and leads into a vast central portion of the reservation in Arizona. The new road will serve an area of more than 2,500 square miles where no improved roads exist at the present time.