Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced the ending of the legal relationship which the Government has had for nearly 20 years with the Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina and with its individual members as Indians.

The Secretary’s action was taken in compliance with the provisions of a 1959 act of Congress (73 Stat. 592) which were accepted by a majority of the adult tribal members.

Richard C. Whitesell, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, has been appointed Assistant Area Director, Community Services, in the BIA's Phoenix Area Office, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Whitesell has been Superintendent of the Flandreau Indian School at Flandreau, South Dakota.

A former marine, Whitesell was Education Program Administrator at Riverside Indian School in Oklahoma before going to Flandreau. He began
his career as an educator in the Brockton, Montana schools in 1961.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman today announced that the Interior Department will hold a series of dialogue meetings with tribes on its Indian Affairs Modernization Initiative during the month of September.

Mr. Toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen:

It gives me great pleasure to come back to Oregon as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. This is the State where I began professional interest in the American Indian almost 30 years ago. I was a graduate student in anthropology at that time and did field work on the Klamath Reservation in the summer of 1934 and through the fall, winter and spring of 1935 and 1936. The learning process is still going on--seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the award of two contracts totaling about $5 million for the grading and draining of a total of nearly 40 miles of road on the Navajo Indian Reservation in both Arizona and New Mexico. The Navajo Reservation, approximately the size of the State of West Virginia, is in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.

WASHINGTON - Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman today announced that the Indian Affairs Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development (IEED) has selected 13 tribal energy and mineral development projects to receive $1.5 million in grants to provide their tribes with economic development opportunities in support of tribal self-determination and self-governance.

The Department of the Interior has announced it favors proposed Federal legislation that would permit the leasing of Indian lands for terms up to a maximum of 55 years for purposes other than farming or grazing.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson has named Francis E. Briscoe, 56, an enrolled member of the Caddo Indian Tribe from Anadarko, Okla., Area Director, Portland Area Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs Briscoe has served in an acting capacity since Dale M. Baldwin retired last year.

PALA, Calif. – During a visit to the Pala Indian Reservation in Southern California today, Interior Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has completed the transfer of 18 acres of land from a former United States Air Force base located near the City of San Bernadino, Calif., to the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, a federally recognized Serrano tribe headquartered in Patton, Calif.

Award of a $5,597,900 contract for construction of a high school plant to accommodate 1,200 Navajo Indian students at Fort Wingate, N. Mex., was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

It will be the first high school of the Bureau of Indian Affairs located in the near vicinity of the Navajo Reservation.