Past News Items

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett today announced that two new Indian employment assistance centers will be opened in Oklahoma within the next two weeks.

To be located in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the centers will serve as adjuncts to the vocational training and job placement services provided through the Bureau's area offices in Muskogee and Anadarko. Referrals to the new centers for services will be made by the Muskogee and Anadarko offices.

On October 11, 1995, the Labor Health and Human Services Committee will consider an amendment introduced by Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) in Section 30 of the Labor, Health, and Human Services Bill (S. 1221) that will prohibit the Legal Services Corporation from providing legal assistance to Indians, Indian tribes, Native Hawaiians, or Native Hawaiian organizations with respect to litigation that "may effect or infringe on the property rights of another person."

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that a meeting for Alaska Natives residing outside of Alaska will be held in Seattle, November 19.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss matters pertaining to the establishment of the 13th Regional Corporation by Alaska Natives under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

In an effort to resolve tribal and non-tribal allocations of Klamath River salmon, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown today agreed to a management plan designed to improve conservation measures while providing for additional salmon harvest now and in the future for Klamath River tribes.

In addition, the agreement by the two secretaries ensures that a definitive legal ruling on future allocations of Klamath River chinook stocks will be issued before Sept. 30 of this year.

The administration of the Intermountain Indian School at Brigham City, Utah, has been transferred to the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Phoenix Area Office, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The school, a residential high school, was formerly under the jurisdiction of the Navajo Area Office.

The administrative transfer reflects a change in the nature of the school, Commissioner Thompson said.

Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel has signed into existence a Royalty Management Advisory Committee, a key element of the Department's action plan to improve the processing of mineral royalties collected on federal and Indian lands.

Stanley M. Speaks, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Agency at Anadarko, Oklahoma. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced that the appointment was effective June 22.

Speaks has been Acting Superintendent of the Intermountain Indian School at Brigham City, Utah, this past year. He has worked in Indian education programs with the Bureau of Indian Affairs since 1959. He was the Supervisory Guidance Counselor at Intermountain for five years.

Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Tara Katuk Sweeney Address at the Alaska Federation of Natives Virtual 2020 Annual Convention: “Good Government, Alaskans Decide”

Buck Martin, Director of the White House Conference on Indian Education, reported ·today (November 21, 1991) ~hat the Oneida Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, the Choctaw Indian Tribe of Mississippi, the National Indian Education Association (NIEA), and the National Indian Impacted School~ Association (NIISA) have given in excess of $20,000 to support the conference.

The Havasupai Indian Tribe can now move out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act signed by President Ford early this month gave the tribe 185,000 acres of land on the rim of the canyon and adjacent to the park. It is land that the Havasupais had occupied for about 1,000 years, until it was taken away from them about a century ago.