Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today approved an agreement between the Crow Indian Tribe and the National Park Service under which some of the Crow Tribal lands in Montana will be included in the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.

The action was requested by the Crow Tribe and concerns reservation land in Montana adjacent to the Recreation Area, which surrounds the reservoir formed by the Yellowtail Dam on the Bighorn River in South Central Montana and North Central Wyoming.

Forty miles northwest of Fairbanks, in the interior of Alaska, the town of New Minto is under construction, to be occupied by 160 Minto Indians. New Minto is a replacement for old Minto Village, 25 miles away, which has suffered severe damage from spring thaws.

PABLO, Montana – As part of President Obama’s commitment to strengthen the government-to-government relationship with tribal nations and fulfill federal trust obligations, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today issued a Secretarial Order reaffirming the Department of the Interior’s trust responsibilities to federally-recognized Indian tribes and individual Indian beneficiaries and providing guidance for Interior agencies in carrying out their obligations to them.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has signed a $12,000 contract with Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity, a non-profit organization with headquarters in Norman, Okla., to finance the recruiting of Indians for Peace Corps work in South America.

In announcing the contract today, Robert L. Bennett. Indian Affairs Commissioner, said: "We are. pleased to cooperate in a joint venture by the Peace Corps and the Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity that will open the doors to many American Indians for Peace Corps service."

Transfer of the Southwestern Range and Sheep Breeding Laboratory at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, on August 1, from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, to the Bureau of Animal Industry, Department of Agriculture, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay. The move fa part of the broad program aimed at narrowing the scope of Indian Bureau operations and transferring responsibilities, wherever possible, to other agencies of Government for to the Indians themselves.

WASHINGTON – Acting Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Lawrence S. Roberts today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), in partnership with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, will hold a landmark training program in 2016 designed specifically for social workers and tribal court presenters in the preparation, preservation and presentation of evidence in child welfare cases.

Ground has been broken for the AMI-Zuni Computer Parts Plant, the first factory on the new B1ackrock Industrial Park of the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico, which will employ 100 Zuni Indians by the year's end.

The groundbreaking took place August 23, exactly three months from the day officials of the parent company, Aircraft Mechanics, Inc. of Colorado Springs, Colo., first set foot on the reservation.

Commissioner Louis R. Bruce of the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs, today announced the approval of a 1965 claims judgment for more than $4.9 million to the Creek Nation of Oklahoma.

The judgment represents more than $1 million in Indian Claims Commission docket 276 and $3.9 million in docket 276. Decision to begin payment was recommended by Claude Cox, Principal Chief of the Creeks; Ed Johnson, Chairman of the Creek Indian Council; and Virgil Harrington, Area Director of the Bureau's Muskogee, Okla. Area Office.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of President Obama’s commitment to support tribal self-governance and self-determination, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today announced a package of regulatory initiatives intended to help tribal leaders to spur investment opportunities and economic development in Indian Country.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall next week will be in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona on water resource and park missions and to see some Indian achievements.

Udall will fly to Denver Tuesday morning, September 5, and will hold a news conference there upon his arrival.

The secretary then will be flown to Cheyenne, where he will meet with Gov. Stanley Hathaway of Wyoming at a noon luncheon.