Past News Items

Promotion of Martin N. B. Holm to the position of Area Director at Aberdeen, South Dakota, in charge of Indian Bureau operations in North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Mr. Holm has been serving as Assistant Area Director in charge of community services at the Bureau's area office in Portland, Oregon since 1954. He will take over his new duties at Aberdeen around May 21, succeeding Benjamin Reifel who resigned March 11.

WASHINGTON – Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today announced that the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College (SCTC) in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., and the Tohono O’odham Community College (TOCC) in Sells, Ariz., have been deemed eligible for assistance under the Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act of 1978 (P.L. 95- 471). Under the Act, the Secretary of the Interior has authority to make grants to tribally-controlled colleges or universities for the purpose of continued and expanded educational opportunities for Indian students.

The Department of the Interior announced today the award of a $813,533 contract for the expansion of school facilities that will provide for 150 additional Indian children at Kinlichee School on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.

The contract covers the construction of a 256-pupil dormitory, a five-classroom school building, twenty employees' quarters, a kitchen and dining hall, and a generator building. The existing school is also to be remodeled under this contract.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs David W. Anderson, in California for meetings with Bureau of Indian Affairs education line officers in San Diego, brought his message about the benefits of positive thinking and healthy choices in life to an assembly of students, parents, faculty and staff here at Sherman Indian High School, a BIA-operated off-reservation boarding school for grades 9-12. Today’s visit illustrated the new assistant secretary’s desire to visit BIA field offices and education facilities during his administration.

The Department of the Interior today announced its endorsement of legislation that would permit the leasing of Indian lands on the Palm Springs Reservation in California and the three Seminole Reservations in Florida for periods up to a maximum of 99 years.

Under present law the maximum term permitted for such leases is 25 years with an option to renew for an additional 25 years.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On June 27, 2003, the Department of the Interior (DOI) will conclude its month-long schedule of presentations to employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) on the reorganization of both agencies with briefings at the Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Billings, Mont. and the Southern Plains Regional Office in Anadarko, Okla., the last of the BIA’s 12 regional offices to be visited.

A change in Federal regulations that will permit the Bureau of Indian Affairs to make loans to withdrawing members of the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon regardless of their degree of Indian blood was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Under the former rules, loans could not be made to individuals of less than a quarter degree Indian blood.

The amendment of the regulation was made possible as a result of legislation recommended by the Department and recently enacted by Congress (Public Law 86-40).

WASHINGTON – Building on the momentum created by the National Summit on Emerging Tribal Economies, Interior Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced that he plans to use the event as a springboard for developing a national strategy on reducing unemployment and enhancing economic development in Indian Country.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced the Department, hoping to keep as much of the present Indian estate as possible in Indian hands, has recommended major amendments of S.51, a bill dealing with the sale or leasing of tracts owned by two or more Indians.

One of the most important recommendations asks for a $15,000,000 increase in the Indian Revolving Loan Fund set up to help Indians acquire land, he said.

WASHINGTON – The Joint Tribal Leaders/DOI Task Force on Trust Reform will hold its next meeting on August 26-28, 2002 at the Hilton Anchorage Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska. At this meeting task force members will continue to look at reforming current trust management systems and processes to better serve American Indian and Alaska Native tribal and individual trust account beneficiaries.