Dennis L. Petersen, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, has been appointed Tribal Government Services Officer for the Bureau
of Indian Affairs, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.
Petersen has been Superintendent of the BIA Sisseton Agency in South Dakota since January, 1972.
An Army veteran of both World War II and the Korean conflict, Petersen has worked with Indian communities since 1952 in resource and economic development.
He was with the South Dakota State University Extension Service for many years and then was a project officer, planning officer and assistant
to the area director for the Economic Development Administration at Duluth,Minn. He was an Indian Community Action Program economic development specialist at the University of South Dakota before his 1971 appointment as Superintendent of the BIA Agency at Pierre, South Dakota.
A graduate of South Dakota State University, Petersen has done graduate work in resource development at Colorado State University and the University of Arizona.
Petersen, 50, was Vice President of the Pheasant Council of the South Dakota Boy Scouts of America. He has also been an active member of the
Lions and the American Legion.
