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Past News Items

Interior Assistant Secretary Ross Swimmer has announced the appointment of Joe M. Parker, a Chickasaw Indian, as director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) Muskogee, Oklahoma area. The appointment was effective May 25.

Since 1976, Parker has been superintendent of the BIA' s Tahlequah, Oklahoma agency, one of seven agencies under the Muskogee area office.

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The Department of the Interior today invited lease proposals on two tracts of undeveloped Indian land in Nevada with a total shore frontage of nearly 14 miles on Pyramid Lake, an inland body of deep-blue fresh water in a desert-mountain setting.

The lands are on the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation about 33 miles north of Reno and offer excellent possibilities for business recreational or residential development.

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John Fritz, Acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior, has approved a joint venture agreement between the Crow Tribe of Montana and a subsidiary corporation of the O'Hare Energy Company of Denver for oil and gas exploration and development on the reservation

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Because of fire safety hazards involved in student dormitories, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is taking action immediately to close its 500-pupil school at Fort Defiance, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Arrangements will be made so that all of the presently enrolled students can finish the current term either by transferring to other reservation schools immediately, or by taking summer school instruction. Plans are also being made to place all of them in other school facilities for the new term which starts next fall.

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The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced that it is publishing in the Federal Register, July 21, 1982, regulations to govern the preparation of a membership roll of the Pribilof Islands Aleut Communities of St. Paul and St. George. The roll to be prepared will serve as a basis for a per capita distribution of judgment funds awarded to the communities by the U.S. Court of Claims.

For additional information, contact the Enrollment Coordinator, Enrollment Coordinating Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Pouch 7-1971, Anchorage, Alaska 99510, telephone 907/271-3761.

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The Government has extended for another five years the trust restrictions on allotted Indian lands, scheduled to expire in calendar year 1962, the Department of the Interior reported today.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior John A. Carver, Jr., said the action underscores the Department's policy of taking all precautions against prematurely ending Federal trust protection of the property of individual Indians.

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Although millions of Federal dollars have been spent over the past 20 years on economic development on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the reservation's economy is, at best, only marginally better according to a recently released review conducted by the Interior Department's Inspector General.

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The Department of the Interior today announced the appointment of E. Reeseman Fryer, Chantilly, Va., as Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in charge of resource programs.

A native of Mesa, Arizona, and career civil servant, Fryer formerly served with the Bureau from 1936 to 1942 and from 1948 to 1950. In his new post he will have nationwide supervision of the Bureau's realty, land operations, forestry and roads programs. He succeeds E. J. Utz who retired in August.

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Interior's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Roy H. Sampsel, will begin negotiations February 10 with Alaskan state officials in Juneau for the transfer of 37 Bureau of Indian Affairs schools to the state education system.

In addition to the 37 elementary schools located in Alaska Native villages, the Bureau now operates one boarding high school, Mt. Edgecumbe, at Sitka, Alaska it is expected that Mt. Edgecumbe would continue operation at least through the 1982-83 school year to allow the state to develop suitable alternative plans for the high school students.

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Prospects for full development of the mineral resources of the Papago Indian Reservation in southern Arizona are now better than ever, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall reported today.

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