Past News Items

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today issued final determinations for two petitioners under the existing Federal Acknowledgment process. The decisions include a final determination to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Pamunkey Indian Tribe (Petitioner #323) as a federally recognized Indian tribe, and a final determination on remand to decline acknowledgment for the petitioner known as the Duwamish Tribal Organization (DTO) (Petitioner #25).

NEW INDUSTRY FOR NORTHERN CHEYENNE -- It may be mid-summer, but it looks like Christmas on Montana's Northern Cheyenne Reservation.

Fourteen tribal members are working to fill a large order for Christmas trees which are fashioned from pine cones and are scheduled for delivery to a San Francisco candy company.

LAVEEN, AZ – More than 150 tribal leaders and individual landowners joined Department of the Interior Deputy Secretary Michael Connor and Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn at the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations (Buy-Back Program) 2015 Listening Session yesterday. The event, held on the Gila River Indian Community, allowed Interior officials to share updates and hear directly from tribal communities about how the Program can best be implemented across Indian Country.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, has announced transfers of four men which will affect two field offices and two Central Office posts.

William T. Schlick of Iowa has been promoted to a newly established position of Assistant to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C. He will be staff assistant for liaison and program coordination with other Federal agencies, including the Office of Economic Opportunity. Since January, 1965, Schlick has been the Bureau's Job Corps Conservation Center Officer.

WASHINGTON, DC – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar kicked off the Second White House Tribal Nations Conference today, calling the gathering a testament to President Obama’s respect for the inherent sovereignty of Indian nations and determination to honor the Nation’s commitments to American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall will meet in Washington, D. C., May 24 with representatives of several major electronics companies to explore ways of expanding industrial job opportunities for American Indians.

Mr. Udall said the meeting is the first step in an all-out drive to spur large-scale commercial activity in Indian areas.

Warren W. Frebel, Vice President and Director of Purchasing for the Magnavox Company, will serve as chairman of the meeting.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk will be a Keynote Speaker with remarks following by the Director of the Bureau of Indian Education Keith Moore at the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) 41st Annual Convention on Thursday, October 7, 2010. They will discuss the roles of the current administration and their policies on making Indian education a priority.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall has commended the White Mountain Apache Tribe of Arizona for setting aside 7,400 acres of reservation land around Mount Baldy as a primitive area.

The effect of the tribal resolution is to preserve the Indian-owned lands against timber cutting and vehicular traffic for at least five years.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs Director Michael S. Black today announced that he has named Weldon “Bruce” Loudermilk as Regional Director of the BIA’s Great Plains Regional Office in Aberdeen, S.D. Loudermilk, an enrolled member of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana, had been serving as the acting regional director since March 18, 2010. The Great Plains Regional Office oversees 12 agencies serving 16 federally recognized tribes located within the states of Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

"Oklahoma! Its very name stirs memories of a long-ago Indian civilization.”

So begins “Indians of Oklahoma" - a 16-page illustrated booklet published this week as the first of a regional series to be issued by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. About a dozen more booklets will follow, each devoted to the history and progress of Indians in a particular state or region.