Ben Reifel Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Age, Biography and Wiki

Ben Reifel (Benjamin Reifel (or Lone Feather)) was born on 19 September, 1906 in Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota, U.S., is a politician. Discover Ben Reifel's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? Also learn how He earned most of networth at the age of 84 years old?

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 19 September. He is a member of famous politician with the age 84 years old group.

Ben Reifel Height, Weight & Measurements

At 84 years old, Ben Reifel height not available right now. We will update Ben Reifel's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.

Who Is Ben Reifel's Wife?

His wife is Alice Janet Johnson (m. 1933-February 8, 1972) Frances Colby (m. August 14, 1972)

Ben Reifel Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2022-2023. So, how much is Ben Reifel worth at the age of 84 years old? Ben Reifel’s income source is mostly from being a successful politician. He is from India. We have estimated Ben Reifel's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets.

Ben Reifel Social Network

Timeline

In 1977, Reifel became a trustee of the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings. He served terms as the board president in 1982–83. He established the first Native American collection at the Art Museum in 1977, donating most of his personal collection.

Ben Reifel remarried on August 14, 1972 to Frances Colby of DeSmet, South Dakota. He died of cancer on January 2, 1990.

In 1970 Reifel decided not to seek reelection. While he intended to retire in 1971, he remained active, accepting an appointment by President Richard Nixon as chair of the National Capital Planning Commission, which has oversight over federal projects in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. He next served as Special Assistant for Indian programs to the Director of the National Park Service in the Department of the Interior. He also served as Interim Commissioner of Indian Affairs during the last two months of the Ford administration.

Born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, Reifel graduated from South Dakota State University. During World War II he achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. He worked for the Department of the Interior beginning in 1933, retiring as the Aberdeen, South Dakota area administrator of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in March 1960. Awarded a mid-career fellowship in public administration to Harvard University for a master's degree, he went on to earn his PhD in 1952. Elected to the Eighty-seventh Congress and to the four succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1961 – January 3, 1971), Reifel chose not to run in 1970.

In 1960, Reifel retired from the BIA and ran for Congress in South Dakota's 1st congressional district. At the time it included all of the counties east of the Missouri River, colloquially known as East River. (The district was redrawn in 1931 to include 21 counties in the southeast part of the state.) Reifel was elected by a substantial margin; he was the first person of Lakota or Sioux descent to serve in the US Congress. During the 1960s, he was the only American Indian in Congress. He served for five terms as Representative from South Dakota. Regarded as a "conservative Republican," he was a thinker who prepared himself well on legislative matters. He could always give a substantial and thoughtful basis for his stand on issues.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Reifel was a member of the Masons, Rotarians, and Elks. He also served on the National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church and the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He also served as national president of Arrow, Inc., a Native American service organization.

In 1955 he was promoted as the Area Director of the Aberdeen Area Office in Aberdeen, South Dakota. He 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. He served as administrator up until three years before his retirement.

In 1949 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. He earned his master's degree in 1949. He received a John Hay Whitney Foundation Opportunity Fellowship and completed his Doctorate in Public Administration in 1952. Following his graduation, Reifel returned to the BIA.

Reifel's duties included promoting the new programs of the Indian Reorganization Act, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934. Allotment of reservation lands was ended, to enable tribes to hold communal lands and better preserve their territories. Under the new law, tribes could reorganize self governments. They were encouraged to write constitutions and to use models of elected government proposed by the BIA, rather than the life chiefs previously supported by the clans.

On December 26, 1933, Reifel married his college sweetheart, Alice Janet Johnson of Erwin, South Dakota. They had a daughter, Loyce Nadine Reifel. She married Emery Andersen. Alice Reifel died of pneumonia on February 8, 1972.

Following his graduation in 1932, Reifel was hired by Hare's School in Mission, South Dakota as an adviser for boys. He began working at the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1933; he was assigned to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as a farm agent to the Oglala Lakota. After a year, he was promoted to field agent at the Pierre, South Dakota regional headquarters.

Reifel's BIA career was interrupted by World War II. In 1931, he had been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve. In March 1942, the Army ordered Reifel to active duty, and he served until July 1946. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

For three years Reifel worked on his family's farm before entering the School of Agriculture, a vocational high school in Brookings, South Dakota. After finishing high school in 1928, Reifel enrolled at South Dakota State College. He paid his own tuition for his first four years of schooling. He took out one of the first loans offered to Native American students under a Merriam Report-recommended Indian education program. Reifel graduated with a B.S. in agriculture in 1932. He was elected the President of the Students' Association during his senior year.

At the same time, he continued to work vigorously for American Indian education, with significant accomplishments. Opposing segregation, he believed that the key to ending the isolation of the Native American people was in educational programs that enrolled American Indian and non-Indian students together in modern progressive facilities (as was recommended by the 1928 Merriam Report), rather than keeping children in Indian-only boarding schools. Reifel supported the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and an increase in the minimum wage.

Benjamin Reifel, also known as Lone Feather (September 19, 1906 – January 2, 1990) was a Lakota Sioux public administrator and politician. He had a career with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, retiring as area administrator. He 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. He served five terms as a Republican United States Congressman from the (now obsolete) First District.

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