Past News Items

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced that a nearly $2.2 million contract for surfacing about 25 miles of road on the Papago Indian Reservation in Arizona -- second in size among Indian reservations only to the Navajo -- has been let to a Phoenix, Ariz., contractor, Tanner Bros. Contracting Co.

WASHINGTON – Department of the Interior Associate Deputy Secretary Jim Cason today announced that the Department has released the final increment of $1 million to the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in Fort Thompson, S.D., to address costs stemming from a serious fire that broke out on April 24 at the Crow Creek High School, a BIA-funded, tribally operated boarding school that serves over 400 students in grades 6-12 on the Crow Creek Reservation.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is prepared to make a per capita judgment distribution of funds totaling approximately $548,000 to all persons who are members or can prove ancestry with those Paiute bands whose chiefs and headmen signed the Treaty of December la, 1868.

Those considering themselves eligible for enrollment should contact the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office in Portland, Oregon, regarding applications.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of LaFollette Butler, a Cherokee, as Acting Director of the Commissioner's Indian Self-Determination Staff. Butler, a 23-year BIA veteran, directed the Bureau's task force which developed the regulations for implementing the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. He is the Special Assistant to the Phoenix Area Director.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs David W. Anderson today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is one of several major sponsors of “RES 2005,” the 19th Annual National Reservation Economic Summit & American Indian Business Trade Fair, which will be held Feb. 7-10, 2005, at the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas, Nev. The BIA also will host one of four conference tracks and Anderson will be the keynote speaker at the RES 2005 Indian Business Achievement Awards Luncheon on Feb. 10.

The Department of the Interior has voiced its support of Federal legislation providing for relocation and reestablishment of the Papago Indian village of Si1 Murk, in southern Arizona, which will be displaced by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers' construction of Painted Rock Dam and Reservoir.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced that a $3 million contract has been let to Nielson's, Inc. of Dolores, Colo. for construction of nearly 15.5 miles of bituminous paved highway beginning near Whitehorse, N. Mex., and extending north and east to, Pueblo Pintado, N. Mex.

WASHINGTON – Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today issued a Final Determination in which she declined to acknowledge as an Indian tribe a group known as the Webster/Dudley Band of Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuck Indians (CB) from Dudley, Mass.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash today told a group of 200 Bureau personnel and high-ranking officials of other Federal agencies that the Administration's projected war on poverty "may…stimulate us to review, appraise, and revise our own ideas" relative to Indian social and economic aid.

He addressed a conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of all superintendents of Indian reservations, the second since 1938 and a sequel to one held in Denver, Colo., shortly after Nash became Commissioner in 1961.

The Office of the Secretary previously announced that it will conduct a listening session on the status of implementation of the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations. The purpose of the session is to meet with Indian tribes to discuss progress to date and receive feedback. Indian landowners may also attend to provide input. This notice corrects the previously published notice to provide RSVP and testimony information and an agenda.