Past News Items

Both educational and economic opportunities for Indian people were significantly increased by Federal Government action in fiscal year 1958, Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton said in the Department's annual report released today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Acting Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) popular family literacy program, FACE, will be expanded to seven BIA-funded schools in the 2003-2004 school year. The Family and Child Education program, which is administered by the Bureau’s Office of Indian Education Programs (OIEP), provides early childhood and adult education programs to American Indian families at home and in school. The FACE program has served over 15,000 infants, children and adults since its start in 1991.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced approval of a proposal made by the Navajo Indian Tribe that bids be invited for a two-year preferential oil and gas prospecting permit on 35,336 acres of wildcat tribal land in Coconino County, Arizona.

The successful bidder would be given not only a. prospecting permit but a preference to select for lease not less than six tracts comprising 2,560 acres each, Subject to a bonus payment of $25 per acre less 50 percent of the per-acre bonus paid for the permit.

WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary Neal McCaleb today joined a ground blessing ceremony for a $38 million classroom and dormitory complex in Santa Fe, New Mexico, emphasizing President Bush's Indian Education Initiative and commitment to nationwide educational reform.

Award of a $1,313,550 contract for the construction of complete new school facilities to accommodate 244 additional Indian pupils on the Navajo Reservation at Shonto, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The new facilities will b, built at a site approximately 3/4 of a mile from an existing Indian Bureau school.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced he has issued a Notice of Final Determination whereby he declined to acknowledge that the Duwamish Tribal Organization of Burien, Wash., (petition #25) exists as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law.

Selection of Dale M. Baldwin, superintendent of the Fort Peck Indian Agency, Poplar, Mont., as the new superintendent of the Nevada agency, Stewart, Nev., effective April 29, was announced today by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior.

Baldwin succeeds Burton A. Ladd, who is retiring after nearly 34 years' service with the Indian Bureau. A new superintendent for the Fort Peck Agency has not been selected.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced his decision to acknowledge that the historical Eastern Pequot Tribe, of the Lantern Hill Reservation, North Stonington, Connecticut exists as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law. The historical Eastern Pequot Tribe meets all of the mandatory criteria under 25 CFR Part 83, the Federal acknowledgment regulations, for a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

Enrollment of American Indians for education beyond high school has more than doubled in the past six years and Indian tribes are now spending over half a million dollars annually from their own funds on scholarship aids for their young people, the Department of the Interior reported today.

In the 1954-55 academic year approximately 2,300 Indian boys and girls attended college or advanced vocational school. In the 1960-61 academic year, which ended last June, reports from the reservations indicate that the number was almost 4900, or more than twice as many as six years before.

WASHINGTON - The new Interior officials confirmed by the Senate last week will be sworn-in by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton at a ceremony tomorrow, July 17, at 1:15 p.m. The ceremony will take place outside on the Department’s rooftop terrace.