Past News Items

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Tuesday, November 3 at 1:00 PM Eastern, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk, White House Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs Kim Teehee, and White House Associate Director for Intergovernmental Affairs Jodi Gillette will hold a conference call with interested reporters to discuss the upcoming White House Tribal Nations Conference.

WHAT: Conference Call to discuss the White House Tribal Nations Conference

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson has named Francis E. Briscoe, 56, an enrolled member of the Caddo Indian Tribe from Anadarko, Okla., Area Director, Portland Area Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs Briscoe has served in an acting capacity since Dale M. Baldwin retired last year.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton and Acting Secretary of Agriculture D. Morse today announced the signing of an agreement with the Department of Agriculture for the free distribution of feed grains to Navajo Indians in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, for the maintenance of subsistence livestock.

The program is being initiated, Secretary Seaton said, because of the acute economic distress produced among Navajo tribal members as a result of drought conditions in previous years.

WASHINGTON – Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs George T. Skibine today issued a proposed finding not to acknowledge the petitioner known as the Brothertown Indian Nation (Petitioner #67) as an Indian tribe. This petitioner, located in Fond du Lac, Wisc., has 3,137 members.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today named Dr. Clennon E. Sockey, 48, a Choctaw Indian of Oklahoma, to be Director of Indian Education Programs of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

"Indian education is the largest program in the Bureau," Commissioner Thompson said. "Almost one-third of the total Bureau budget and one-third of the Bureau's employees are involved in education or school-related activities. Dr. Sockey will bring to its direction a unique background in education, experience, and Indian heritage."

Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today that an agreement has been reached with the All Indian Pueblo Council to transfer the senior high programs (10th, 11th and 12th grades) of the Albuquerque Indian School (AIS) to the campus of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe.

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs Director Jerold L. “Jerry” Gidner today announced that he has named Michael S. Black as Regional Director of the BIA’s Great Plains Regional Office in Aberdeen, S.D. His appointment became effective on July 20. The Great Plains Regional Office oversees 12 BIA agencies serving the 16 federally recognized tribes located in the states of Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act has three basic components: Land, money, and an interrelated corporate structure Land, money, and an interrelated corporate structure of Native villages and regions.

Since Alaska Natives -- Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts --are a land-oriented people, the cession of 40 million acres of land to them under the Act is of great importance. One-twelfth of Alaska will be in their hands starting in early 1974.

The Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced the award of a $3,178,412 contract for construction of new boarding school facilities for more than 600 additional Indian children in the elementary grades at Leupp, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation.

The new plant will have a capacity of 672 pupils. It will replace a 67-pupil school now operated by the Bureau at Leupp. Upon completion of the new facilities, the present school will be abandoned.

WASHINGTON – Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Economic Development – Indian Affairs George T. Skibine today announced a new effort to recruit and train American Indian and Alaska Native post-secondary students to become Indian Country’s next generation of tribal energy and natural resource management professionals. The Energy Resource Development Tribal Internship Program has been developed through a partnership between the Indian Affairs Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development (IEED), the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT) and the U.S.