Past News Items

Interior's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Roy H. Sampsel, will begin negotiations February 10 with Alaskan state officials in Juneau for the transfer of 37 Bureau of Indian Affairs schools to the state education system.

In addition to the 37 elementary schools located in Alaska Native villages, the Bureau now operates one boarding high school, Mt. Edgecumbe, at Sitka, Alaska it is expected that Mt. Edgecumbe would continue operation at least through the 1982-83 school year to allow the state to develop suitable alternative plans for the high school students.

Prospects for full development of the mineral resources of the Papago Indian Reservation in southern Arizona are now better than ever, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall reported today.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs William E. Hallett today announced the appointment of new superintendents for the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Umatilla and Pima Agencies.

William D. Sandoval, a San Juan Pueblo/Navajo Indian, is the superintendent at Umatilla in Pendleton, Oregon. Edmund L. Thompson, an enrolled member of the Pima Tribe, has been selected as the superintendent at Pima in Sacaton, Arizona.

Appointment of Martin P. Mangan, Alexandria, Va., as Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in charge of legislative work was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

In his new post, Mangan will have prime responsibility for planning and coordinating the legislative program and legislative recommendations of the Bureau.

Mangan, 40, has been with the central office of the Bureau in Washington, D.C., since 1951, and is assuming the duties of H. Rex Lee, recently appointed as Governor of American Samoa.

The BIA's Office of Indian Education Programs has appointed new chiefs for four of its six Central Office Divisions, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Indian Affairs Sidney Mills announced today.

Dr. Noah Allen has been named Chief of Elementary and Secondary Education; Leroy Falling, Chief of Post-Secondary Education; Carmen Taylor, Chief of Student Support Services; and Dr. Charles Cordova Chief of Exceptional Education. Student

Transfer of Charles S. Spencer, superintendent of the Flathead Indian Agency in Montana, to head the Fort Hall Agency in Idaho, effective May 15, 1961 was announced today by the Department of the Interior. He replaces Frell M. Owl who has been superintendent at Fort Hall since 1954 and is now joining the branch of tribal programs in the Bureau's central office at Washington, D. C.

A successor to Spencer at the Flathead Agency has not yet been selected.

WASHINGTON – Earlier this month, Tara Mac Lean Sweeney, a prominent Alaskan leader and acclaimed businesswoman with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, was sworn in as the Department’s Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. Sweeney was nominated by President Donald J. Trump in October 2017. Sweeney, a member of the Native Village of Barrow and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, is the first Alaska Native and only the second woman in history to hold the position.

A Special two man negotiating team has been appointed by Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Sid Mills to help settle the current governmental crisis on the Red Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota

The team members are former Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner Robert L. Bennett and Graham Holmes, a retired BIA official. Holmes will be dispatched immediately to Red Lake to begin consulting and planning with the tribal governing body, the petitioners and other Red Lake citizens.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has already assigned staff to prepare plans that will provide 5,000 additional school seats for Indian and Eskimo pupils and correct unsafe and obsolete Federal Indian school facilities in line with yesterday’s mandate from President Kennedy, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

Swift action was possible, Secretary Udall added, because the Bureau has for some time been formulating long-range plans for expanding and modernizing its nationwide school system for Indian youngsters.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of the 7th Annual Tribal Nation’s Conference, the White House announced yesterday an Interagency Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for setting a Path to End Homelessness in Native American communities. In support of that interagency effort, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has finalized updates to regulations on the Housing Improvement Program (HIP), as an important part of the Obama Administration’s Tiwahe initiative, which is designed to promote the stability and security of American Indian families.