Past News Items

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today announced the appointment of Edward F. Parisian as Director of the Office of Indian Education Programs (OIEP). Parisian, an enrolled member of the Chippewa-Cree Tribe of Montana, has served as OIEP’s deputy director since April 15, 2002. His new appointment is effective August 3, 2003.

Construction of two new school buildings at Bogue Chitto, Mississippi, to accommodate 86 additional Indian children in an area where about 170 of school age were not enrolled last year, will begin soon under a contract awarded by the Indian Bureau, the Department of 'the Interior announced today.

The contractor awarded the job is Central Construction Co., Inc. of Philadelphia, Mississippi on its low bid of $209,881. There were three higher bids ranging from $210,520 to $267,613.

Washington -- Acting Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Aurene Martin announced today that Riverside Indian School, Anadarko, Okla., has been chosen for a pilot program, sponsored by NASA and presented by the Busey Group. The grant is for the purpose of promoting careers in the math, science, IT and healthcare area with special emphasis in the space industry.

Over a million acres has been added to the land holdings of Indian tribes throughout the country in the past three years as a result of Congressional enactments and administrative section by the Department of the Interior, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons announced today.

WASHINGTON - The Department of the Interior has submitted plans to a federal court outlining a proposed $335 million effort to conduct an historical accounting of individual American Indian and Alaska Native trust accounts as well as a separate blueprint to guide the future management of Interior's trust obligations to American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Award of a contract to Yuma Rock and Sand, Yuma, Arizona, for construction of a concrete waste way structure as a key element in the Colorado River Indian Irrigation Project at Parker, Ariz., was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Yuma Rock and Sand’s bid of $83,615 for the job was the lowest of five received by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The other four ranged from $111,366 to $125,747.20.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced the appointment of Robert D. Ecoffey, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, as its lead law enforcement officer. As director of the Bureau’s Office of Law Enforcement Services, Ecoffey will oversee a 750-person department that provides uniformed police services, detention operations and criminal investigations of alleged or suspected violations of major federal criminal laws in Indian Country.

The Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced the award of a $3,178,412 contract for construction of new boarding school facilities for more than 600 additional Indian children in the elementary grades at Leupp, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation.

The new plant will have a capacity of 672 pupils. It will replace a 67-pupil school now operated by the Bureau at Leupp. Upon completion of the new facilities, the present school will be abandoned.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Interior Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb will appear on C-SPAN’s live nationwide public affairs call-in program “Washington Journal” on Sunday, July 15, 2001, at 9:15 a.m. (EDT). He will be speaking on contemporary American Indian issues, tribal economic development, education and his goal of shaping the Bureau of Indian Affairs into a 21st century service agency responsive to the agency’s customers: federally recognized tribes and American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Award of a $375,000 construction contract that will more than double the capacity of an Indian Bureau school at Cove, Ariz., on the Navajo Reservation was announced today by the Department of the Interior

The project covers construction of a four-classroom building, a kitchen and multipurpose room, a storage and generator room, and expansion of all utilities.