Past News Items

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) Director Keith Moore will visit Flagstaff, Arizona on Tuesday to announce the winner of the Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA). Levi Horn of the Chicago Bears, who is representing Nike N7, the company’s commitment to bring access to sport to Native American and Aboriginal communities, will join Director Moore in presenting the award to the Kinlani Bordertown Dormitory. PALA is a six week physical fitness challenge managed by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition.

WASHINGTON—The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will hold a memorial ceremony on Wednesday, May 11, 2011, to honor the first Native American, post-Prohibition era, ATF investigator killed in the line of duty. The name of William Louis Pappan, a member of the Kaw Nation, who was killed 75 years ago, will be unveiled at the ATF Headquarters Memorial Wall in Washington.

WASHINGTON –The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) today released the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a proposed 350-megawatt solar energy project on tribal trust land of the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians in Clark County, Nevada.

The publication in the Federal Register tomorrow of a notice of availability begins the 30-day public comment period. Access to the Final EIS document can be viewed at:

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk conveyed the nation’s gratitude to the families of seven police officers who were being remembered and honored at the 20th Annual Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Service held today at the United States Indian Police Academy in Artesia, N.M.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk will deliver the keynote address at the 20th Annual Indian Country Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Service being held Thursday, May 5, 2011, at the United States Indian Police Academy in Artesia, N.M. The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services (BIA-OJS) holds the event to honor and commemorate tribal, state, local and federal law enforcement officers working on federal Indian lands and in tribal communities who have given their lives in the line of duty.

Washington, April 27, 2011—Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack welcomed St. Louis Rams Quarterback Sam Bradford to the Agriculture Department today and joined him in urging Native American youth to spend the summer pursuing healthy outdoor activities. Bradford, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, participated with over 30 Native American students at USDA's People's Garden in planting a Native American garden, called The Roots of American Agriculture.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today issued a final determination not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Choctaw Nation of Florida (Petitioner #288) as an Indian tribe.

The petitioner, from Marianna, Fla., and which has about 77 members, claims to be a group of Choctaw Indians who migrated from North Carolina to Georgia and then to Florida following the Indian removals of the 1830s.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs Director Michael S. Black today announced that the BIA’s Office of Justice Services (OJS) has created a training program for tribal court judges, prosecutors, clerks and administrators in an effort to improve the administration of justice in Indian Country. The program was developed in collaboration with the University of New Mexico School of Law’s Institute of Public Law (IPL) and Southwest Indian Law Clinic (SILC) and the American Indian Law Center, Inc. (AILC) in Albuquerque, N.M.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary–Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today issued a final determination not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians (Petitioner #84B) as an Indian tribe. This petitioner, located in Santa Ana, Calif., has 455 members.

ANADARKO, Okla. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today visited the Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, Oklahoma as part of Interior’s commitment to expanding quality educational opportunities for American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. Riverside Indian School is run by the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) and is an Off-Reservation Boarding School (ORBS) that serves over 500 students representing 72 federally recognized tribes.