Eastern Shoshone tribe

The Wyoming Legislature is considering two bills about sales taxes on the Wind River Reservation. One would return improperly collected online sales taxes to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes, and the other codifies that the state does not collect sales tax from non-tribal members on reservation land.

People who vandalize petroglyphs, pictographs and historical inscriptions would be fined under a bill recently passed by the state Senate. The measure also sets aside funding to survey, document and model all known pictographs and petroglyphs on state land in Wyoming.

A University of Wisconsin researcher came across the fossils, still preserved in their burrows, on BLM land near Dubois. He returned there over the years, eventually partnering with the Eastern Shoshone Tribe to bring local middle school students and elders to the site.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate said they had issues with the Wyoming federal delegation’s supposed lack of consultation with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes about the conveyance. Barrasso said he spoke with both tribes as early as February, but the Wind River Inter-Tribal Council released a resolution this month insisting neither tribe was consulted.

Last year, U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) and U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) filed bills that would transfer the Pilot Butte Power Plant to a non-tribal irrigation district so it can be used to generate power for Fremont County. The defunct plant sits on the Wind River Reservation. Tribal residents say they were never consulted about the transfer, and that they oppose it.

This fall, the nearly 150-year-old remains of an Eastern Shoshone boy were brought back to the Wind River Reservation from the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Former tribal leader John St. Clair escorted his relative’s remains and shared his own experience with the continued impacts of boarding schools and assimilation policy today.

Three new members joined the Eastern Shoshone Business Council after the tribe’s general election in October. Stanford Ware, Clinton Glick and Latonna Snyder took their oaths of office during a swearing-in ceremony in Fort Washakie at the end of the month.

The Eastern Shoshone Tribe is holding its general election on Oct. 22. Six people are competing for three seats on the Eastern Shoshone Business Council and a dozen people are competing for six seats on the tribe’s Entertainment Committee.

The Eastern Shoshone Tribe released the official results for the primary election for the Eastern Shoshone Business Council. The top six candidates will advance to the general election on Oct. 22 and compete for three open seats.

The remains of an Eastern Shoshone boy have been returned to the Wind River Reservation, after more than a hundred years at the Carlisle Indian School cemetery in Pennsylvania.