Four Indian Bureau Personnel Shifts Announced

Media Contact: Information Service
For Immediate Release: July 30, 1954

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced four personnel changes, effective September 1, in agency superintendent positions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Guy Robertson, superintendent of the Blackfeet Agency, Browning, Mont., will be transferred to the superintendency at Rosebud, S. Dak., replacing Will J. Pitner, recently assigned as Bureau area director at Anadarko, Oklahoma.

Charles S. Spencer, superintendent at Standing Rock Agency, Fort Yates, N. Dak., succeeds Robertson.

Joseph W. Wellington, superintendent of Fort Belknap Agency, Harlem, Mont., replaces Spencer.

Darrell Fleming, accountant in the Bureau's area office at Billings, Mont., will succeed Wellington.

Mr. Robertson, who has been at Blackfeet Agency since 1950, entered the Government service in 19/4.2 with the War Relocation Authority at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. In 1946, he became Wyoming district manager for the United States Department of Commerce. After one year, he became property supervisor for the Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc., for two years and then was general manager of the Noble Hotel, Landor, Wyoming, for several months before he joined the Indian Bureau. Prior to his Government employment he was in business in Wyoming, Texas and Nevada, He was born in Quincy, Mo., in 1890, was educated in the public schools of Wheatland, Mo., and is a graduate of Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Business College.

Mr. Spencer has been with the Bureau since 1931 when he was appointed farm agent at Crow Agency, Mont. After four years he worked for seven years as extension agent at Western Shoshone Agency, Owyhee, Nev., and for ten years as soil conservationist at Wind River Agency, Port Washakie, Wyo. He was named superintendent at Rosebud in 1952. He is a native of Victor, Idaho, and was graduated from University of Idaho with a B.S. degree in agriculture in 1929.

Mr. Wellington has been superintendent at Fort Belknap since 1947. He was employed by the Bureau in 1940 as a teacher at Carson Indian School, Stewart, Nev., and was appointed head of the school's agricultural department, which post he held in 1942. He remained for two years when he was named supervisor of Indian education for livestock raising and dairying. He was attached for three years to the Bureau's office at Muskogee, Oklahoma and then served.one year in the wartime Central Office at Chicago before his appointment at Fort Belknap. He was born at Lewistown, Mont., in 1907 and studied agricultural education and animal husbandry at Montana State College.

Mr. Fleming joined the Bureau in 1933 as a clerk at Crow Agency, Montana, For 19 years he served in a variety of clerical and financial positions in the Bureau. He was appointed finance specialist at the Billings Area Office in 1952 and moved to his present position as accountant in that office one year later. Born at Bernice, Okla., in 1911 of Cherokee Indian descent, he attended the Haskell Indian Institute, Lawrence, Kans. He was in the Navy for two years during World War II.