Past News Items

The Department of the Interior is asking for public comments on proposed regulations containing additional criteria and requirements to be used in evaluating requests to take lands in trust for Indian tribes outside existing reservation boundaries.

The proposed rules were published in the July 15, 1991, edition of the Federal Register and comments must be received within 60 days.

Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Eddie F. Brown is enlisting Indian tribal leaders and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) employees as part of an intensive program to combat the sexual abuse of Indian children.

The first meeting of the Presidential Commission on Indian Reservation Economies will be held 1n Washington, D. C. October 19-20, Co- Chairmen Robert Robertson and Ross Swimmer announce d today.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Ken Smith announced that one hundred Indian Tribal leaders, Government Policy Officials and National/ International Travel Leaders will meet to discuss American Indian Tourism Thursday, January 27, 1983.

The meeting, co-sponsored by the Interior Department Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and the Commerce Department U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration (USTTA), will be held at the Key Bridge Marriott in Rosslyn, Virginia.

Interior Assistant Secretary Ken Smith announced today that Maurice W. Babby, an Oglala Sioux, has been named director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Sacramento area.

Babby succeeds William E. Finale, Sacramento area director since 1968, who has accepted an assignment as director of the Phoenix area for a period not to exceed six months. Finale, a 30-year Interior veteran, has announced plans to retire within the next year.

Interior Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs James Canan announced today that 150,000 acres of timberland was purchased April 23 for the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indian tribes of Maine under the terms of the Maine Indian Settlement Act passed last October.

The purchase involved 38 separate tracts of land in East-Central Maine, ranging in size from 30,000 acres to 40 acres. The total cost was $29.6 million. The land was bought from the Dead River Land Company of Maine.

The Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of South Dakota has selected Cyrin F. Maus for a two-year tribal management assignment under the Tribal Managers Corps (TMC), Commissioner of Indian Affairs William E. Hallett announced today. Maus, who will begin his general management assignment at Lower Brule in January, 1981, will be the first manager assigned under TMC.

"We are very please that Mr. Maus has decided to come to Lower Brule because he has a lot of valuable experience in tribal government," said Lower Brule spokesman D. L. Fallis.

Transfer of the Southwestern Range and Sheep Breeding Laboratory at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, on August 1, from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, to the Bureau of Animal Industry, Department of Agriculture, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay. The move fa part of the broad program aimed at narrowing the scope of Indian Bureau operations and transferring responsibilities, wherever possible, to other agencies of Government for to the Indians themselves.

Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman today announced the appointment of Mr. Marcy Cully, Bowlegs, Oklahoma, as Principal Chief of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma for the period beginning December 10, 1952 through December 31, 1953.

Mr. Cully, who was elected Assistant Chief at a tribal election held June 3, 1952, fills the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. George Harjo, Sasakwa, Oklahoma, principal chief, on December 9, 1952.

Authority for the appointment of a principal chief of the Seminoles is contained in the Act of April 26, 1906 (34 Stat. 137).

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced three important personnel moves in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Russell G. Fister will transfer from the position of assistant area director, Minneapolis, Minn., to be superintendent at Osage Agency, Pawhuska, Okla., effective November 27. He will succeed Theodore B. Hall whose transfer to the position of assistant area director, Gallup, New Mexico, was recently announced.