Indian Country Today News

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – It took nothing less than a mile-thick glacier to carve the cascade at Sioux Falls, S.D. from the quartzite bedrock. Ironically, the hardness of that same rock formation figures differently at the site in Minnesota where it surrounds the soft pipestone that is prized by American Indian tribal members.

New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment and Santa Fe, a city of art and wonder, offered more than just business at the NIGA Mid-Year Membership meeting held at the Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino.

PRINCETON, N.J. – The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation selected Frances Stout, a retired registered nurse and chairperson of the Tohono O’odham Nursing Care Authority in Sells, Ariz., to receive a Community Health Leaders Award.

BROOKS, Calif. – The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation won WateReuse’s 2009 Project of the Year Award for its Cache Creek Desalination Facility. Representatives accepted the award before an audience of hundreds of industry leaders Sept. 14 at the Annual WateReuse Symposium.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Appeals court judges hearing arguments Oct. 14 on the legality of North Carolina’s video poker ban sounded wary of negating the will of the General Assembly when it granted an exception to machines on the Cherokee Indian reservation.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – North Carolina’s senators have introduced a bill to provide federal recognition to the state’s Lumbee Indian tribe.

Imagine the time and toil it would take teachers and students to transform a schoolyard into a haven for wildlife. Southern Ute Indian Academy in Colorado did just that, qualifying as the first tribal school to earn certification as a National Wildlife Federation Wildlife Schoolyard Habitat site in 2005.

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) – The Intertribal Bison Cooperative will receive a $175,000 federal grant to help Native American tribes develop farm market stores.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Military officials have dedicated a statue of an Oklahoma soldier who won the Medal of Honor for his actions during World War II.

Cinnamon Spear knows the value of a good education. The recent Dartmouth College graduate grew up on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in the small community of Lame Deer. The list of her accomplishments in high school and college is as long and diverse as her interests – science, dancing, filmmaking, community activities and ultimately, service to her people in Montana.

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., recently announced that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has released $476,000 to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe for the Wiconi Wakan Health and Healing Center. The funds will be used to provide suicide prevention services and counseling for children and youth aged 10 to 24.

TULSA, Okla. – A federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware ruled Oct. 14 that the auction of a Texas horse racing track should be rescheduled, delaying the hopes of a subsidiary of an Oklahoma-based American Indian tribe that wants to buy the facility.

DAYTON, Ohio – “The meaning of this project goes way beyond the goods that are given out. It’s about making connections between people,” said Guy W. Jones, Hunkpapa Lakota, who recently completed an annual 2,200-mile, nine-day pilgrimage to deliver more than 50,000 pounds of donated clothes and school supplies to the Rosebud, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock reservations.

LAWTON, Okla. – Western tribes, unified by a similar language, traveled hundreds of miles to visit their sister tribe, the Comanche Nation, during the 10th Annual Shoshone Language Reunion in September.

According to the Department of Justice, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation is the first tribe in the nation to comply with, and implement, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act passed by Congress in 2006.

WASHINGTON – The National Indian Gaming Commission has announced a one-year extension for tribal gaming authorities on implementing new Class II gaming regulations.

PORTLAND, Maine – Leaders of a new group that’s launching a new effort to win approval for a casino in western Maine is ready to begin collecting signatures to force a referendum next year.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Appeals court judges hearing arguments Oct. 14 on the legality of North Carolina’s video poker ban sounded wary of negating the will of the General Assembly when it granted an exception to machines on the Cherokee Indian reservation.

WASHINGTON – “This is a repatriated item I’m wearing today. I wore it on purpose. You have no idea how important this is for me to wear. You have no idea how important it is for some little old lady in Kake, Alaska to know that I’m wearing this today.”

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – North Carolina’s senators have introduced a bill to provide federal recognition to the state’s Lumbee Indian tribe.