Past News Items

WASHINGTON –– The White House hosted its first ever lacrosse clinic today on the South Lawn featuring some of the nation’s best lacrosse players showcasing the health benefits of the nation’s fastest growing sport to 100 youth as part of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! in Indian Country (LMIC) initiative.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has received petitions from forty Indian groups seeking to be acknowledged by the Federal Government as Indian tribes. A list of the forty groups, from 21 states, is being published in the Federal Register as required by regulations made effective October 2, 1978. These regulations establish the procedures for establishing that an American Indian group exists as an American Indian Tribe.

Award of contracts for architectural and engineering services on three proposed school enlargement projects to accommodate 1,187 additional children on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The largest of the three jobs involves an expansion of the Indian school at Leupp, Ariz., from its present capacity of 67 students to 697. The $60,000 architectural-engineering contract on this was awarded to Scholer and Fuller, Associate Architects, Tucson, Ariz.

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk will offer remarks at the Society of American Indian Government Employees (SAIGE) 8th Annual National Training Conference being held June 13-17, 2011, at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa in Catoosa, Okla. He will speak during the lunch period on Wednesday, June 15.

A plan for the use and distribution of more than $400,000 awarded to the Pillager Bands of Chippewa Indians by the Indian Claims Commission was published in the Federal Register on May 27, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson said today.

The Award represents additional compensation for some 814,000 acres of land in west central Minnesota cede to the United States under the treaty of August 21, 1847.

Chippewa descendants of the Pillager Bands are now affiliated with either the Leech Lake Reservation of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.

To enable the Navajo Tribe to expand its industrial development program, Under Secretary Hatfield Chilson has signed an order transferring 75 acres of the Coconino National Forest, near Flagstaff, Arizona, to the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The withdrawal was arranged by the Department's Bureau of Land Management.

DURANT, OKLA. — The fifth government-to-government tribal consultation regarding the draft report on Indian Affairs Administrative Organizational Assessment and Bureau of Indian Affairs/ Bureau of Indian Education streamlining plans starts Thursday, May 10, 2012 at the Choctaw Casino Resort in Durant, Okla. The two-day consultation is the fifth of seven that will take place around the country in Arizona, Florida, South Dakota, Washington, California and Alaska. The first was held in Miami on April 12 and 13, 2012.

In remarks at the dedication of Block I of the Navajo Irrigation Project in Farmington, New Mexico, today Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe hailed the opportunities the project will provide for the Indian people.

Construction of two new school buildings at Bogue Chitto, Mississippi, to accommodate 86 additional Indian children in an area where about 170 of school age were not enrolled last year, will begin soon under a contract awarded by the Indian Bureau, the Department of 'the Interior announced today.

The contractor awarded the job is Central Construction Co., Inc. of Philadelphia, Mississippi on its low bid of $209,881. There were three higher bids ranging from $210,520 to $267,613.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) Director Keith Moore will visit Flagstaff, Arizona on Tuesday to announce the winner of the Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA). Levi Horn of the Chicago Bears, who is representing Nike N7, the company’s commitment to bring access to sport to Native American and Aboriginal communities, will join Director Moore in presenting the award to the Kinlani Bordertown Dormitory. PALA is a six week physical fitness challenge managed by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition.