Past News Items

Washington -- Acting Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Aurene Martin announced today that Riverside Indian School, Anadarko, Okla., has been chosen for a pilot program, sponsored by NASA and presented by the Busey Group. The grant is for the purpose of promoting careers in the math, science, IT and healthcare area with special emphasis in the space industry.

Acting upon the recommendation of a special task force which visited Alaskan native villages this past summer, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced that the Tsimpshian Indians of the island community of Metlakatla will be permitted to continue using their fish traps during the 1963 fishing season.

Since 1915, by Secretarial regulation, the Metlakatlans have been allowed to fish with traps. Early in 1962, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that an Alaskan law prohibiting traps does not apply to the Annette Island Reservation within which Metlakatla is situated.

Washington – The National Indian Country Telecommunications Infrastructure Consortium (NICTIC) will hold a meeting on February 27, 2003, at the Wyndham Washington Hotel, 1400 M Street NW, Washington, DC 20005, starting at 2:30 p.m. in the Ash Lawn North room.

The Department of the Interior today announced its support of proposed Federal legislation providing for distribution of a jl1dgment fund totaling nearly $12 million recovered by the Cherokee Indian Tribe of Oklahoma.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Interior Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb and Deputy Assistant Secretary Wayne Smith will meet with tribal leaders on Thursday, December 20, 2001, in Minneapolis, Minn., at a second consultation meeting on the Department's plan to improve the management of Indian trust assets. The meeting will be held at the Doubletree Hotel (7901 24th Avenue South) starting at 9:00 a.m. (CST).

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today that Paul Jones, Tribal Chairman of the Navajo Indians, has agreed to enter into negotiation looking toward the exchange of nearly 300,000 acres of tribal land surrounding Rainbow Bridge National Monument in Utah for public domain lands.

Secretary Udall said: “The acreage lying south and west of Navajo Mountain comprises one of the magnificent scenic areas outside the National Park System." Rainbow Bridge has long been the focal point of interest in this fantastically eroded red sandstone country.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a major sponsor of the American Indian/Alaska Native Tourism Association’s 2001 American Indian Tourism Conference, which will take place Sept. 9-12 in Bismarck, N.D. Over 700 people representing the 558 federally recognized tribes in the United States as well as tribes from Canada are expected to attend the conference, which is the largest of its kind in the country. The theme for this year’s event is “Preserving our past, sharing our future.”

The three top officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs--Commissioner Philleo Nash, Deputy Commissioner John O. Crow, and Associate Commissioner James E. Officer--will travel extensively through Indian areas of Oklahoma, consulting with Indian leaders and visiting Indian families in their homes, during the week starting March 4, the Department of the Interior announced today.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Interior Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb will meet with tribal leaders on Friday, February 1, 2002 in Arlington, Va., at the seventh in a series of consultation meetings on the Department’s plan to improve the management of Indian trust assets. He will be joined by Wayne R. Smith, Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs and Ross O. Swimmer, Director, Office of Indian Trust Transition. The meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City Hotel (2799 Jefferson Davis Highway) starting at 9:00 a.m. EST.

Philleo Nash, former lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, today took the oath of office as Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior auditorium. He succeeds Glenn L. Emmons who resigned effective January 20.

Nash, 51, has had a career in government service, private business and higher education.