Past News Items

Appointment of Turner Bear, Checotah, Oklahoma, as Principal Chief of the Oklahoma Creek Indian Tribe for a two-year term, beginning immediately, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Fred, A. Seaton.

Mr. Bear is a full-blood Creek Indian who has taken an active interest in tribal affairs and is now a member of the Creek Indian Council. He succeeds Roley Buck who has served as Principal Chief since 1955.

WASHINGTON – Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today announced that the Joseph K. Lumsden Bahweting Anishnabe School, a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) grant day school operated by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Michigan, has been named a 2003 No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.

Awarding of a contract for construction of a series of earth fill dam and dike projects on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Fremont County, Wyoming, to C. J. Abbott of Laramie, Wyoming, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Abbott's bid of $37,600 was the lowest of six received by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The others ranged from $38,000 to $62,200.

WASHINGTON – Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin will join students, parents, and tribal officials on August 28, 2003, to celebrate the opening of Baca/Dlo’ay azhi Community School, a new Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)-operated day school located in Prewitt, N.M.

DeGree Construction Co. of Bend, Oregon, will construct a $69,895 four classroom school building at Warm Springs, Oregon, under a contract awarded by the Indian Bureau, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Six other contractors submitted higher bids ranging from $77,500 to $94,937.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Aurene Martin, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, say that a conference starting today at the University of Montana in Missoula will bring a "welcome" and needed forum for Native American perspectives on the Bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Hatfield Chilson today announced Departmental approval of a resolution adopted by the Rosebud Sioux Indian Tribe of South Dakota calling for cancellation of grazing leases and permits granted in the future to nonmembers operating on the reservation if they fail to pay a tax imposed by the tribal organization.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Bush has proposed a $2.31 billion budget for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for Fiscal Year 2004, an increase of $62.0 million over the FY2003 request, to improve the Interior Department’s management of individual Indian and tribal trust assets, to operate new tribally-operated detention centers and to develop tribal economies. The request also maintains the President’s commitment to eliminate the school maintenance backlog and provide tribes with greater opportunities to directly operate BIA schools.

Sproul Construction Company, Albuquerque, N. Mex., has been awarded a $780,500 contract for a major expansion and renovation of the Indian Bureau's boarding school plant at Lukachukai, Ariz., on the Navajo Reservation, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Sproul's bid was the lowest of 11 received. The others ranged from $810,188 to $972,000.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced he has issued a Notice of Final Determination whereby he declined to acknowledge that the Duwamish Tribal Organization of Burien, Wash., (petition #25) exists as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law.