Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel today announced an FY 1989 budget for the Department that maintains funding levels for the Department's key operating programs, improves management of the Nation's water resources and adds funds to help eliminate hazardous wastes and contaminants affecting Interior activities.

Sixty tribal groups recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the U. S. Department of the Interior have qualified to participate in a $881,160 Tribal Government Development Program, Marvin L. Franklin, Assistant to the Secretary for Indian Affairs, announced today.

Participating tribes are in the States of Alaska, Arizona California, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada) New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington a Wisconsin.

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—On Monday, October 22, 2012, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will deliver keynote remarks at the National Congress of American Indians’ 69th Annual Convention & Marketplace in Sacramento. Salazar is expected to discuss the Obama Administration’s progress in opening a new chapter in our nation-to-nation relationship with American Indian and Alaska Natives tribal governments.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced that the Hopi Indian Agency, located on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona, will report administratively to the Phoenix Area Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This change has been vigorously sought by Senator Barry Goldwater for some time because of his feeling that the interests and orientation of the Hopi Indians are toward Arizona. Hopi trading activity since the days of the early settlers has centered in communities south of their reservation, and they find employment, attend schools and hospitals in these communities.

A six-month study of the school construction needs of public school districts serving Indian students is currently underway, Marvin L. Franklin, Assistant to the Secretary for Indian Affairs, announced today.

The National Indian Training and Research Center (NITRC) of Tempe, Arizona, is conducting the study under a contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Donald E. “Del” Laverdure today issued the following statement on the recent passing of Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Chairman Stanley R. Crooks:

“Stanley Crooks, the late chairman of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in Minnesota, takes his place among the thoughtful, far-seeing and decisive tribal leaders that Indian Country has produced throughout history.

Appointment of Robert D. Holtz as area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Minneapolis, Minn., was announced today by Acting Secretary of the Interior Clarence A. Davis. He succeeds E. Morgan Pryse who retires from the Bureau December 31, after 35 years of service.

Holtz has been assistant area director at Minneapolis since last July. He first came with the Bureau in 1931 as a forest ranger with the Klamath Agency in Oregon and later served in the same capacity at Zuni Agency in New Mexico, and as forest supervisor at the Papago Agency, Sells, Ariz.

The largest cession of land to a group of Native Americans in the history of the United States is one way to describe the effect of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act passed by the Congress December 18, 1971.

Or, put another way, The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act will put about one-twelfth of Alaska into the hands of the Alaska Native corporations --an administrative device unique in the annals of solutions to aboriginal land claims.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Acting Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Donald E. “Del” Laverdure today announced that the U.S. Department of the Interior will conduct a series of listening sessions with federally-recognized tribes regarding American Indian sacred sites located on federal lands.

The consolidation of two Choctaw Indian schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Oklahoma was announced today by Acting Commissioner W. Barton Greenwood. Wheelock Academy, established in Millerton in 1832, will be closed and its students will use dormitory facilities at Jones Academy and attend public schools in nearby Hartshorne.

The move will reduce operating costs per pupil to about half of the present figure and will provide better educational opportunities for the children.