Past News Items

A 15-year employee at the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Turtle Mountain Agency, Belcourt, North Dakota, has been named Agency Superintendent. He is Fred E. Gillis, a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe.

Gillis, who has been acting superintendent the past five months, has held a variety of positions at the agency since his first employment there in 1959. He has been the administrative manager, realty officer and legal clerk. He started as a clerk-steno.

The Department of the Interior's Assistant Secretary .for Indian Affairs, Eddie F. Brown, today announced the appointment of Patrick A. Hayes as Deputy to the Assistant Secretary for Trust and Economic Development. The 44-year-old enrolled member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux tribe has been acting in the position for the past several months. The appointment is effective immediately.

Approximately 800 acres of federally-owned land, adjoining the Fort Sill Indian School at Lawton, Okla., has been added to the land held in trust for the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Indians of Oklahoma.

The land was administratively transferred to the Secretary of the Interior, as trustee, by Arthur F. Sampson, Administrator of the General Services Administration on March 17, 1975. Notice of the transfer has been published in the Federal Register.

WASHINGTON – Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs John Tahsuda today announced the appointment of Charles Addington as deputy bureau director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) Office of Justice Services (OJS). The appointment by BIA Director Bryan Rice became effective on December 24, 2017. Addington, a member of the Cherokee Nation, had been serving as OJS’s acting deputy bureau director since October 2, 2017.

Addington has over 25 years of law enforcement experience, 20 of which are in the management of Indian Country law enforcement programs.

Leaders of the Ak-Chin Tribe in Arizona and the Department of Interior have signed an "agreement in principle” for the revision of legislation designed to assure the Tribe of a permanent water supply, provided in an economically efficient manner, according to William P. Horn , Interior Deputy Under Secretary .

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus today signed an order restoring to the Quechan Indians 25,000 acres of land within the original 1884 boundaries of the Fort Yuma Reservation in Arizona and California.

WASHINGTON – Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke praised today’s announcement by the Department of Justice on the progress being made in coordinated federal, state, tribal and local efforts that are reducing the incidence of violent crime across the Nation.

Interior Secretary James Watt, Agricultural Secretary John R. Block and representatives of Chugach Natives, Inc. today signed an agreement that provides for the final major settlement with regional corporations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA). The State of Alaska, also a party to the agreement, will sign shortly. “

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus today released a draft supplement to the 1974 final environmental impact statement covering Executive Branch alternatives for protecting Alaska National Interest Lands until Congress can take final action.

WASHINGTON – Furthering President Obama’s Generation Indigenous (“Gen-I”) and Tiwahe initiatives that support American Indian and Alaska Native families and strengthen tribal communities, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Lawrence S.