============================================================ Get 4 Omaha Steaks Filet Mignons, 6 Top Sirloins, or our Filet & Strip Combo for only $29.99 each. Order now and you'll also get 6 Burgers FREE! Stock up for BBQ season with sizzlin' savings from Omaha Steaks! http://click.topica.com/caaacAQb1ddNBb2HgmNb/OmahaSteaks ============================================================Indian memorial in hands of panel
By LORNA THACKERAY
Of The Gazette Staff
Nearly 13 years after National Park Service officials made a commitment to
build an Indian memorial at Little Bighorn Battlefield, $2.3 million for the
project has been approved.
The money is budgeted in the Senate version of the new Department of Interior
appropriation bill.
The House version of the bill, however, contains no money for the memorial.
The fate of the monument, therefore, depends on the outcome of a Senate-House
conference committee charged with reconciling the two versions of the bill.
Battlefield Supt. Neil Mangum, who considers construction of the memorial
among his chief goals, described himself as “guardedly optimistic" that
funding will be included in the final Interior appropriation bill.
“It’s the best shot we’ve had so far," he said Monday.
Mangum tried to raise money for the memorial through private donors, but met
with disappointing results. He has also increased the entrance fee to the
national battlefield to $10 in an effort to raise revenue for the project,
but the extra revenue won’t add up to $2.3 million any time soon.
Senators Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Max Baucus, D-Mont., worked together to
include funding for the memorial in the Interior bill. The National Park
Service, which manages the battlefield, is an agency of the Department of
Interior.
Burns’ spokesman J.P. Donovan said Monday chances are good that when the
House and Senate get together sometime this summer or fall to iron out
differences in the bills, the memorial will end up with the money.
“Conrad sits on the conference committee," Donovan said. “He’ll be in the
thick of things all over.”
April Gentry, spokesman for Montana’s lone representative in the House,
Republican Dennis Rehberg, said that although the House bill contained no
appropriation for the monument, it did express interest in the project. The
wording of the House report says:
“The Committee strongly supports the Little Bighorn Battlefield National
Monument Indian Memorial, but was unable to include funding at this time
because of the focus, by both the administration and the committee on health
and safety construction backlog projects. Funding for this project, which
would commemorate the lives and traditions of the Cheyenne, Sioux and other
Indian nations is long overdue. Should additional funding become available in
Fiscal Year 2002, the Committee intends to make this a high priority."
For as long as anyone can remember, a memorial to Indians who participated at
the June 25, 1876, battle has been discussed. Frustrated descendants of the
victors took matters in their own hands in 1988, placing their own plaque on
the mass grave where members of the Seventh Cavalry are buried. The
government paid for construction of a memorial shaft for the dead soldiers in
1881.
The steel plaque was removed from the grave and is now displayed in the
battlefield visitor center. At the same time, Park Service officials promised
to erect a monument to all Indian participants, including those who allied
with the government against their traditional tribal enemies.
Congress approved the memorial in 1991, along with another piece of
legislation that changed the monument’s name from Custer Battlefield to
Little Bighorn Battlefield. No appropriation, however, was included in the
legislation.
After that, the process seemed to be more off track than on. In 1994, the
Department of Interior at last selected an advisory committee to move the
memorial forward. Two years later, competition was opened for the design of
the memorial, and in 1997 a selection was made. When Mangum became
superintendent in 1998, one his first stated objectives was finishing the
memorial.
In 1999, he arranged a groundbreaking ceremony on the site, hoping it would
spark interest in fund raising. But there were a lot of other memorials also
seeking funding, including the heavily promoted World War II memorial in
Washington, D.C. It became clear that not enough donations could be collected
from the private sector to build and maintain the Little Bighorn Indian
memorial.
Lorna Thackeray can be reached 657-1314 or at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Never cease in the fight for peace, justice, and equality for all people. Be
perisitent in all that you do and don't allow anyone to sway you from your
conscience.".....Leonard Peltier
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