Past News Items

Cash income from Indian-owned forests in the United States has trebled in the last decade and the interest of Indian tribes and individual Indians in the scientific management of their woodland assets has greatly increased during the same period, the Department of the Interior reported today.

WASHINGTON – Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Economic Development – Indian Affairs George T. Skibine today announced the publication of a Notice of an Amended Proposed Finding declining to acknowledge that a group known as Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe in Louisiana is an Indian tribe according to federal law.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced that he has appointed Ignatius L. Billy, 57, a Pomo Indian of Hopland, California, to be Personnel Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C.

"Billy comes to his post with a wealth of experience in all fields of personnel administration," Thompson pointed out. "He demonstrates the development of expert capabilities by American Indians in many professional fields."

Award of a $309,000 contract for the construction of a gymnasium at the Cherokee Indian School operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Cherokee, North Carolina was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

WASHINGTON – Associate Deputy Secretary James E. Cason announced today that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Eastern Regional Office in Nashville, Tenn., has approved under 25 CFR 151 a request by local officials of Madison County and Oneida County in the state of New York to extend the comment period for state and local governments on a land-into-trust application from the Oneida Indian Nation. The Bureau granted a 60-day extension of time to submit comments on the tribe’s application which is comprised of three groups of land parcels.

WASHINGTON – On Thursday, July 9, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will deliver opening remarks at the first-ever White House Tribal Youth Gathering, part of the Obama Administration's Generation Indigenous (Gen-I) initiative to remove barriers standing between Native youth and opportunities to succeed. The Gathering provides Native youth from across the country the opportunity to interact directly with senior Administration officials and the White House Council on Native American Affairs, chaired by Secretary Jewell.

Sales of timber from lands belonging to Indian tribes and individual Indians brought the owners a record high income of $12,388,000 in the fiscal year 1960, or 23 percent more than the 1959 income, the Department of the Interior announced today.

The volume of timber cut under contract was also at the record level of 597 million board feet, an increase of 63 million board feet over the 1959 total. Not included in these figures are the data for Klamath Indian Reservation, in Oregon, where sales are affected by the approaching termination of all Federal trust responsibility.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs Director W.

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Award of a $624,782 road construction contract that will provide an all-weather bus route to enlarged school facilities at Kayenta, Arizona, on the Navajo Indian Reservation was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract, which was awarded to Lyle Price of Flagstaff, covers construction and bituminous surfacing of a 19.2-mile section of road in northern Arizona between Kayenta and Utah State Highway 47 at the Utah Line.