Past News Items

The Department of the Interior today announced the appointment of E. Reeseman Fryer, Chantilly, Va., as Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in charge of resource programs.

A native of Mesa, Arizona, and career civil servant, Fryer formerly served with the Bureau from 1936 to 1942 and from 1948 to 1950. In his new post he will have nationwide supervision of the Bureau's realty, land operations, forestry and roads programs. He succeeds E. J. Utz who retired in August.

Prospects for full development of the mineral resources of the Papago Indian Reservation in southern Arizona are now better than ever, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall reported today.

Appointment of Martin P. Mangan, Alexandria, Va., as Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in charge of legislative work was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

In his new post, Mangan will have prime responsibility for planning and coordinating the legislative program and legislative recommendations of the Bureau.

Mangan, 40, has been with the central office of the Bureau in Washington, D.C., since 1951, and is assuming the duties of H. Rex Lee, recently appointed as Governor of American Samoa.

Transfer of Charles S. Spencer, superintendent of the Flathead Indian Agency in Montana, to head the Fort Hall Agency in Idaho, effective May 15, 1961 was announced today by the Department of the Interior. He replaces Frell M. Owl who has been superintendent at Fort Hall since 1954 and is now joining the branch of tribal programs in the Bureau's central office at Washington, D. C.

A successor to Spencer at the Flathead Agency has not yet been selected.

WASHINGTON – Earlier this month, Tara Mac Lean Sweeney, a prominent Alaskan leader and acclaimed businesswoman with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, was sworn in as the Department’s Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. Sweeney was nominated by President Donald J. Trump in October 2017. Sweeney, a member of the Native Village of Barrow and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, is the first Alaska Native and only the second woman in history to hold the position.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has already assigned staff to prepare plans that will provide 5,000 additional school seats for Indian and Eskimo pupils and correct unsafe and obsolete Federal Indian school facilities in line with yesterday’s mandate from President Kennedy, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

Swift action was possible, Secretary Udall added, because the Bureau has for some time been formulating long-range plans for expanding and modernizing its nationwide school system for Indian youngsters.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of the 7th Annual Tribal Nation’s Conference, the White House announced yesterday an Interagency Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for setting a Path to End Homelessness in Native American communities. In support of that interagency effort, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has finalized updates to regulations on the Housing Improvement Program (HIP), as an important part of the Obama Administration’s Tiwahe initiative, which is designed to promote the stability and security of American Indian families.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced the establishment of new Bureau of Indian Affairs area offices at Window Rock, Arizona, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

An administrative staff to serve both new offices will remain in Gallup, New Mexico and some of the personnel assigned to Window Rock will continue to have headquarters there.

Albuquerque, NM – This week, prosecutors and special agents from the Office of the Attorney General joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs, tribal law enforcement agencies, service providers and the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women (CSVANW) to combat human trafficking on Native American lands in New Mexico. The working conference, Sex Trafficking in Indian Country, demonstrates the critical importance of federal, state and tribal entities working together with service providers to attack human trafficking and protect victims on tribal lands in New Mexico.

A Navajo Indian medicine man will demonstrate the sacred art of sandpainting for visitors to the Interior Department I s Art Gallery beginning October 12.

Fred Stevens, a Navajo medicine man from the Indian Reservation at Lupton, Arizona will create sand paintings used in Navajo religious-healing ceremonies. He will appear in connection with the Gilbert Maxwell Collection of Navajo Weaving now being displayed at the gallery.