Past News Items

"Walk the High Iron," a documentary film about American Indians learning the iron workers' trade, is now available for use by Indian organizations from Bureau of Indian Affairs Area Offices.

The 28-minute film, which was cited for excellence at the 1975 Chicago International Film Festival, shows Indian trainees at a special school operated by the International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers under a contract with the BIA.

Forrest J. Gerard, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, today announced his resignation effective January 19, 1980, to re-enter private business.

Gerard, a Presidential appointee who has served since September 1977 as the Department's first Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, said in a letter to President Carter: ''My decision to re-enter private business was not easily reached. In these difficult times, however, my responsibility to assist two of my daughters with their college education left me but a single choice."

WASHINGTON –The Office of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Initiative and four federal agencies today launched Let’s Move! in Indian Country (LMIC). LMIC is an initiative to support and advance the work that tribal leaders and community members are already doing to improve the health of American Indian and Alaska Native children. As a part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative, LMIC brings together federal agencies, communities, nonprofits, corporate partners and tribes to end the epidemic of childhood obesity in Indian Country within a generation.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of David N. Burch as Superintendent at the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Intermountain School in Brigham City, Utah. Since 1970, Burch has been Deputy Assistant Area Director for Education in the Phoenix Area Office.

Intermountain was once the Bureau's largest school as an off-reservation boarding high school for Navajo Indian students. It is now an inter-tribal school, and the administration was transferred from the Navajo Area to the Phoenix Area last summer.

DeGree Construction Co. of Bend, Oregon, will construct a $69,895 four classroom school building at Warm Springs, Oregon, under a contract awarded by the Indian Bureau, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Six other contractors submitted higher bids ranging from $77,500 to $94,937.

NEW YORK, NY—Donald “Del” Laverdure, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, today addressed the United Nations on U.S. support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He emphasized that President Obama holds his Administration to a high standard of action on Native American issues.

Carl M. Dupuis, an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, has been appointed Chief of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Division of Facilities Engineering, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

He is the first Indian to hold this position in the Bureau.

''We are very pleased about this appointment," Commissioner Thompson said. "Carl is highly qualified and will do an excellent job in a field where there are now too few Indians. The Indian community needs to have more of its students move into engineering work."

Acting Secretary of the Interior Hatfield Chilson today announced Departmental approval of a resolution adopted by the Rosebud Sioux Indian Tribe of South Dakota calling for cancellation of grazing leases and permits granted in the future to nonmembers operating on the reservation if they fail to pay a tax imposed by the tribal organization.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of President Obama’s commitment to fulfilling this nation’s trust responsibilities to American Indians and Alaska Natives, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will convene the first meeting of the Commission established to undertake a forward looking, comprehensive evaluation of Interior’s trust management.

Appointment of a four member Ad Hoc Hearings and Appeals Board to decide appeals as to qualifications of Village Corporations and other matters under appeals as to qualifications of Village Corporations and other matters under Interior Rogers C. B. Morton.

Chairman of the Board, which will be headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska, will be Judith M. Brady, 32, of Anchorage; Alaska. Mrs. Brady has been editor of the Alaska Native Management Report published by the Alaska Native Foundation.