Past News Items

WASHINGTON, DC -- Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced that the Court-ordered process of notifying individuals of their right to participate in the $3.4 billion Cobell settlement is underway.

Award of a contract totaling $3,195,062 for expansion of school facilities to accommodate 510 additional Indian students on the Navajo Reservation at Greasewood, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Wilson Barber has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Agency on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, Acting Deputy Commissioner Raymond V. Butler announced today.

Barber, a Navajo, has been Superintendent of the Cheyenne River Agency at Eagle Butte, South Dakota.

Barber, 35, attended the University of New Mexico. He worked for the Navajo Tribe and for the BIA on the Navajo Reservation before going to Cheyenne River in 1975.

His appointment of the Mescalero Reservation in south-central New Mexico becomes effective June 5.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that a Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) college professor from the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) in Albuquerque, N.M., was named New Mexico Professor of the Year for 2009. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) selected Dr. Nader Vadiee from more than 300 top professors in the United States.

Award of a $1,944,455 contract for the construction of additional school facilities on the Navajo Indian Reservation at Kayenta, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract provides for the construction of two 192-pupil dormitories, a 4-classroom beginners' school, a 660-pupil kitchen-dining room, a multipurpose building, and other related facilities. The construction, when completed, will provide more educational opportunity for the present enrollment of 460 pupils at the Kayenta School and allow the enrollment of 200 additional Navajo pupils.

Proposed rules governing the adoption of tribal water codes on Indian reservations were published March 17 in the Federal Register, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs Raymond v. Butler announced today.

The regulations, designed to preserve and protect Indian water rights, establish the standards which tribal codes must meet to be approved by the Secretary of the Interior when such approval is required.

WINDOW ROCK, Arizona -- Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar told Navajo Nation officials today that President Obama’s major goals for working with Indian Country include improving educational opportunities for American Indian children, strengthening law enforcement and advancing self-sustaining economic development for tribal communities.

Award of a $685,435 contract for construction and conversion of educational facilities at Santa Fe, New Mexico, into an Indian arts school was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract calls for the construction of a new academic building, an administrative building and a student center building. The present academic building will be remodeled into art studios and classrooms. In addition to the building construction, outside utilities will be improved, paved streets with curbs and gutters will be provided, and a chain link perimeter fence will be installed.

Stanley M. Speaks, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, has been appointed Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Anadarko, Oklahoma area, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ben Reifel announced today.

The Anadarko area includes the western half of Oklahoma and the State of Kansas. Speaks whose appointment was effective January 16, has been Superintendent of the BIA agency at Anadarko, one of the area's five agency offices.

In the 1974-75 school year Speaks was the Acting Superintendent of the Intermountain Indian School at Brigham City, Utah.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Obama’s proposed $12 billion budget for the Department of the Interior in FY2010 will allow the nation’s largest land manager to play a central role in carrying out the President’s vision for addressing the challenges of our times, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said today.