Past News Items

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson has changed the Bureau of Indian Affairs' service structure in the State of Nevada. Official notice of the changes is being published in the Federal Register.

Formerly served by a single agency office, the state will now have an Eastern Nevada Agency at Owyhee and a Western Nevada Agency at Stewart. This change was requested by Indian Tribal and community groups in Western Nevada. Splitting the state into two agency jurisdictions is expected to improve services.

WASHINGTON – The latest class to graduate from an Indian Affairs-supported pilot project to train American Indians in the commercial building trade will hold its commencement ceremony on January 16, 2009, in Phoenix, Ariz. The current class has 12 trainees, all of whom are from the Navajo Nation, the largest federally recognized tribe in the state. The ceremony will take place at the Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen in Phoenix immediately following a luncheon for graduates and guests that starts at 11:30 a.m. (local time).

George E. Keller, an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Rosebud, South Dakota Agency.

Keller has been the Community Services Officer at the agency the past four years.

Keller is a graduate of the Chadron State Teachers College, Chadron, Nebraska and has a Masters degree in education from South Dakota State University.

PHOENIX - Tribal leaders, federal officials and leaders of national Native organizations came together this week at the National Native American Economic Policy Summit, agreeing upon 314 economic policy recommendations for Indian Country.

New regulations for a program affecting 100,000 Indian children in 435 public school districts and 23 states were published in the Federal Register August 21, 1974. "These regulations reflect the vast changes and development in the Indian community of the past several years," said Commissioner Morris Thompson of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

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.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the appointment of Jose A. Zuni, 53, full-blooded Isleta Pueblo Indian, and Superintendent of the Nevada Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs, to be Director of Administration of the Bureau.

WASHINGTON – Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason today announced that the Department of the Interior declined to acknowledge that the groups known as the Eastern Pequot Indians of Connecticut (EP) and the Paucatuck Eastern Pequot Indians of Connecticut (PEP) are Indian tribes within the meaning of Federal law.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the appointment of Elmer F. Compton, 53, Rosebud Sioux tribal member and former officer and economic development officer of the Rosebud Agency, Bureau of He has been acting in that Indian Affairs, to the post of Superintendent. He has been acting in that capacity since October 1972.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton has upheld a June 2004 decision by former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin, who declined to acknowledge as an Indian tribe a group known as the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe of Indians. The petitioning group, headquartered in Trumbull.
Connecticut, did not successfully demonstrate that it meets all seven mandatory criteria for Federal acknowledgment as an Indian tribe under Federal regulations.