Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced plans for converting the 480-pupil Federal Indian boarding school at Santa Fe, New Mexico, into an Institute of American Indian Arts by the fall of 1962.

Planned to accommodate eventually as many as 500 students, the new Institute will provide a full high school course and two post-high school years. It will enroll youths of one-fourth or more Indian blood from all parts of the country who show special aptitudes in a wide variety of creative arts.

The Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of Lower Brule, South Dakota and the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewas of Bayfield, Wisconsin will be the first tribes to receive management assistance from the Tribal Managers Corps (TMC) Commissioner of Indian Affairs William E. Hallett announced today

The tribes are now selecting managers who will work for the tribal governments on 18- to 24-month general management assignments similar to that of a city manager. They are choosing from a pool of nine managers selected by TMC, according to TMC Program Manager Bill Robinson.

A "new trail" for Indians leading to equal citizenship, maximum self-sufficiency, and full participation in American life was endorsed today by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

Secretary Udall endorsed the "new trail" approach in announcing the completion of a 77-page report by a Task Force on Indian Affairs which he appointed earlier in February.

"Preparing the new trail will require the collaboration of the Indians, State and local governments, and the American people," Secretary Udall said.

Albert D. Kahklen, an Alaska Native born at Haines, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Anchorage Agency in Alaska, Commissioner of Indian Affairs William E. Hallett announced today

Kahklen has been a regional development chief for the Alaska Area Native Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services, in Anchorage since 1975. His appointment as the BIA Superintendent was effective July 13.

Award of a $69,451.06 contract for construction of additional irrigation works that will bring water to about 750 acres now unirrigated on the Pine River Project of the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in Colorado was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Albuquerque, N.M. – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs John Tahsuda delivered remarks at Interior Days during the 2018 Annual Tribal Self-Governance Consultation Conference, celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Tribal Self-Governance, held at the Albuquerque Convention Center. This year’s conference registration peaked around 900 attendees.

Secretary Zinke welcomed conference attendees via videoconference:

A plan for the distribution and use of $6 million awarded to the Chiricahua Apache Tribes oy the United States Court of Claims is being published in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Kallett said today.

According to the plan, approved By Congress and made effective December 20, 1979, 69 percent of the award will go to the Mescalero Apache Tribe of New Mexico and the remaining 31 percent to the Fort Sill Apache Indian Tribe of Oklahoma This distribution is based on a 1913 census.

The five-man task force now studying the organization and programs of the Bureau of Indian Affairs will hold a series of meetings with Indian tribal representatives at seven key points throughout the western half of the country starting March 20, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

PARIS, France – U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell met today with French Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira to express the United States' concern about tribal sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony that are sold at French auction houses, and to seek cooperation in working to repatriate objects to Indian tribes in the United States.

James J. Thomas, 27, Winnebago Indian, has been named special assistant to the Department of the Interior's Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Louis R. Bruce, the Commissioner announced today.

Thomas, horn and reared on the Winnebago I Indian Reservation, Nebraska, recently completed an Indian administrator development program of the Bureau.