Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus told Bureau of Indian Affairs employees March 31 that he has taken no position - pro or con - on the American Indian Policy Review Commission recommendation to remove Indian affairs from the Department of the Interior in favor of a separate, independent agency.

WASHINGTON–Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today announced that he will visit the Rough Rock Community School on Wednesday, Sept. 16, where he will be joined by Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley to attend a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Phase II portion of the Rough Rock Community School Replacement Project.

For draft documents recommending ways to improve Indian education programs are now available for review and comment by interested persons, the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Director of Indian Education Programs William Demmert announced today.

Demmert said that the papers deal with "major matters of immediate concern to me." He said that he hoped Indian tribal governments, school boards, parents and other citizens would take the opportunity to read the documents and make their suggestions.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Larry Echo Hawk, 60, was sworn into office today as the Interior Department’s 11th Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. Echo Hawk is an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma whose nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 19, 2009. Secretary Salazar conducted the official swearing in ceremony.

Regulations governing the handling of minors' shares of judgment funds awarded to Indian tribes and distributed on a per capita basis are being published in the Federal Register, it was announced by the Bureau of Indian Affairs today.

The regulations establish certain restrictions and requirements designed to preserve and protect the per capita shares of minors and other legally incompetent persons as mandated in the Indian Judgment Funds Act of 1973.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today pledged to restore integrity in government relations with Indian tribes, fulfill the United States' trust responsibilities to Native Americans, and work cooperatively to build stronger economies and safer American Indian communities.

Casimir L. LeBeau, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, has been named Assistant Area Director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs Minneapolis Area, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

LeBeau has been the Tribal Operations Officer in the Minneapolis Area since 1967. The office serves Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs Director W. Patrick Ragsdale today announced that he has appointed Vicki L. Forrest as the new deputy director for the BIA’s Office of Trust Services. Forrest, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, came to the BIA from the Interior Department’s Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST).

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the appointment of James J. Thomas, 29, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, to head the Field Employment Assistance Office, at Cleveland, Ohio. He has been acting in that capacity since July of this year.

Thomas, born and reared on the Winnebago Indian Reservation, in Nebraska, recently completed the Indian Administrator Development Program of the Bureau.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Education Director Thomas M. Dowd today announced that the Enemy Swim Day School, a BIE­ funded K­8 school in Waubay, S.D., is one of four non- profit organizations named by the Verizon Foundation last month as the first winners of its Verizon Tech Savvy Award. Enemy Swim, operated by the Sisseton­ Wahpeton Sioux Tribe of the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota, was among a national field of 85 nominees.