34 Facts About Ben Reifel

Ben Reifel had a career with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, retiring as area administrator.

Ben Reifel ran for the US Congress from the East River region of South Dakota and was elected as the first Lakota to serve in the House of Representatives.

Ben Reifel served five terms as a Republican United States Congressman from the First District, from 1961 to 1971.

Ben Reifel was the son of Lucy Burning Breast, a Sicangu Lakota, and William Reifel, of German descent.

Ben Reifel attended a Todd County school as well as the Rosebud Reservation boarding school as a child.

Ben Reifel graduated at the age of 16 from the eighth grade, speaking both English and Lakota.

For three years Ben Reifel worked on his family's farm before entering the School of Agriculture, a vocational high school in Brookings, South Dakota.

Ben Reifel paid his own tuition for his first four years of schooling.

Ben Reifel took out one of the first loans offered to Native American students under a Merriam Report-recommended Indian education program.

Ben Reifel was elected the President of the Students' Association during his senior year.

Ben Reifel began working at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1933; he was assigned to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as a farm agent to the Oglala Lakota.

Ben Reifel was largely successful in garnering support for the Act.

Ben Reifel started at Pine Ridge and later made his way to other reservations in South Dakota, ensuring that the programs of the Bureau were effective in the South Dakota reservations.

Ben Reifel was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Ben Reifel was selected as a Tribal Relations Officer and later promoted to the position as Superintendent of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota.

In 1949 Ben Reifel was awarded a scholarship to study public administration at Harvard University under a Civil Service Commission program for management development of career government officials.

Ben Reifel received a John Hay Whitney Foundation Opportunity Fellowship and completed his Doctorate in Public Administration in 1952.

Ben Reifel worked briefly at its national headquarters in Washington, DC before returning to the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation as Superintendent.

Ben Reifel later served as Superintendent at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Ben Reifel was responsible for numerous employees and the application of federal programs and policies for American Indians of a three-state region: Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Ben Reifel served as administrator up until three years before his retirement.

In 1960, Ben Reifel retired from the BIA and ran for Congress in South Dakota's 1st congressional district.

Ben Reifel served for five terms as Representative from South Dakota.

Ben Reifel served as the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations subcommittee on Interior Department Affairs.

Ben Reifel worked hard for farming interests in South Dakota and the Plains states in general, opposing cuts in farm support programs, pushing the Oahe Dam to supply water for irrigation, and similar matters.

Ben Reifel supported the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and an increase in the minimum wage.

Ben Reifel was instrumental in getting the Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science of the US Geological Survey located in South Dakota.

Ben Reifel next served as Special Assistant for Indian programs to the Director of the National Park Service in the Department of the Interior.

Ben Reifel served as Interim Commissioner of Indian Affairs during the last two months of the Ford administration.

Ben Reifel served on the National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church and the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

In 1977, Ben Reifel became a trustee of the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings.

Ben Reifel established the first Native American collection at the Art Museum in 1977, donating most of his personal collection.

On December 26,1933, Ben Reifel married his college sweetheart, Alice Janet Johnson of Erwin, South Dakota.

Ben Reifel remarried on August 14,1972 to Frances Colby of DeSmet, South Dakota.