WASHINGTON - The Obama administration has picked another South Dakotan to be part of the team that oversees federal policy in Indian Country.
Keith Moore, an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, has been named director of the Bureau of Indian Education. The BIE implements federal education laws and provides aid to 183 elementary and secondary schools as well as peripheral dormitories on 64 reservations in 23 states that collectively serve about 42,000 students.The agency also serves post-secondary students through higher-education scholarships and support funding to 26 tribal colleges and universities and two tribal technical colleges. Moore, chief diversity officer at the University of South Dakota, said he is "deeply honored" by the appointment. He oversaw Indian education programs for the state of South Dakota before joining the university. In a statement issued Friday by the Interior Department announcing the appointment, Moore affirmed "my commitment to carrying out the BIE's mission to provide quality education opportunities for American Indian and Alaska Natives in accordance with their tribes' needs for cultural and economic well-being, and in keeping with the wide diversity of tribes as distinct cultural and governmental entities." Larry Echo Hawk, assistant secretary for Indian Affairs in the Interior Department, praised Moore as a "dedicated educational administrator for many years." Moore joins several other South Dakota Indians named to the Obama administration, including Yvette Roubideaux, a member of the Rosebud tribe, appointed as director of the Indian Health Service; Lillian Sparks, a Lakota woman of the Rosebud and Oglala Sioux Tribes, named commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans; and Michael Black, a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe, tapped as director of the Office of Indian Affairs.