Past News Items

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman will discuss the Interior Department Indian Affairs Modernization Initiative on September 18, 2007, on Native America Calling. He will be joined by Majel Russell, who is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs. NAC is the national public radio and online public affairs and news program of the Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, a Native­ operated media center in Anchorage, Alaska.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that proposed regulations for the implementation of the Indian Financing Act are being published in the Federal Register September 3, 1974.

Thompson said that full funding of $80 million is being sought for the Act, which was approved by President Nixon April 12, 1974.

The Indian Financing Act of 1974 itself:

WASHINGTON - Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman will speak on Thursday, May 3,2007, at the 16th Annual Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers' Memorial Service. The event will take place at the United States Indian Police Academy in Artesia, N.M. The Bureau of lndian Affairs holds the service each year to honor tribal, state and federal law enforcement personnel killed in the line of duty while working on Federal Indian lands or in tribal communities.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the appointment of Amon A. Baker, 48, a member of the Cherokee Nation to be Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Sequoyah High School, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Baker replaces Edwin Moore who was appointed Assistant Area Director for Education in Muskogee in February 1964.

Baker holds a B.S. and Masters degree from Northeastern College, Tahlequah, Oklahoma in Industrial Arts and Education. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1944 to 1946.

WASHINGTON – Interior Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason and Special Trustee for American Indians Ross O. Swimmer will speak tomorrow at Arizona State University College of Law’s Federal Trust Responsibility Conference at the ASU campus in Tempe, Ariz. Cason will speak on the Interior Department’s ongoing trust reform efforts. Swimmer will discuss future directions of the Federal-Indian trust relationship.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced that a nearly $2.2 million contract for surfacing about 25 miles of road on the Papago Indian Reservation in Arizona -- second in size among Indian reservations only to the Navajo -- has been let to a Phoenix, Ariz., contractor, Tanner Bros. Contracting Co.

WASHINGTON – Department of the Interior Associate Deputy Secretary Jim Cason today announced that the Department has released the final increment of $1 million to the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in Fort Thompson, S.D., to address costs stemming from a serious fire that broke out on April 24 at the Crow Creek High School, a BIA-funded, tribally operated boarding school that serves over 400 students in grades 6-12 on the Crow Creek Reservation.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of LaFollette Butler, a Cherokee, as Acting Director of the Commissioner's Indian Self-Determination Staff. Butler, a 23-year BIA veteran, directed the Bureau's task force which developed the regulations for implementing the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. He is the Special Assistant to the Phoenix Area Director.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs David W. Anderson today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is one of several major sponsors of “RES 2005,” the 19th Annual National Reservation Economic Summit & American Indian Business Trade Fair, which will be held Feb. 7-10, 2005, at the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas, Nev. The BIA also will host one of four conference tracks and Anderson will be the keynote speaker at the RES 2005 Indian Business Achievement Awards Luncheon on Feb. 10.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced that a $3 million contract has been let to Nielson's, Inc. of Dolores, Colo. for construction of nearly 15.5 miles of bituminous paved highway beginning near Whitehorse, N. Mex., and extending north and east to, Pueblo Pintado, N. Mex.