Past News Items

Promotion of Perry E. Skarra from the superintendency of the Yakima Indian Agency., Toppenish, Wash., to the position of assistant area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Portland, Oreg., and appointment of Dannie E. L. Crone, soil conservationist with the Bureau at Window Rock, Ariz., as the new Yakima superintendent were announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay. The changes will be effective July 25.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs will make a further study of the hospitalization of Indians of the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming next September if the Bureau is then still responsible for the Indian health program. Under the provisions of H.R. 303, now under active consideration by Congress, responsibilities for Indian health protection would be transferred from the Bureau to the United States Public Health Service.

Appointment of Ralph M. Shane as superintendent of Fort Berthold Indian Agency, New Town, N. Dak., was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Mr. Shane has been supervising highway engineer at Fort Berthold for three years. He joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs in November 1936, as an engineering draftsman at the same agency and a year later was promoted to junior road engineer. In January 1939, he transferred to the Sacramento, California agency as chief of road survey party.

Headquarters of the Fort Berthold Indian Agency is being moved from Elbowoods to Newtown, North Dakota, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

The move, part of the readjustment and relocation at Fort Berthold made necessary by construction of the Garrison Dam and Reservoir Project of the Missouri River Basin Development, was originally scheduled to take place later. Because of an emergency need to use the agency buildings at Elbowoods for school purposes, however, the move is being undertaken at the present time and should be completed in the next few weeks.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay has announced departmental decisions and clarifications on questions recently raised by a number of South Dakota livestock operators about the sale of grazing privileges at, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the five-year period beginning next November 1.

Transfer of the Southwestern Range and Sheep Breeding Laboratory at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, on August 1, from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, to the Bureau of Animal Industry, Department of Agriculture, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay. The move fa part of the broad program aimed at narrowing the scope of Indian Bureau operations and transferring responsibilities, wherever possible, to other agencies of Government for to the Indians themselves.

A 36-year career in the Bureau of Indian Affairs ended on July 31 when Leroy D. Arnold, Chief Forest and Range Managemen, retired, Mr,. Arnold who lives at 2110 Hildarose Drive, Silver Spring, Md., began work with the Indian service as a forest fire guard at Warm Springs Indian Agency, Oregon, June 1917. He has served as forest ranger at Warm Springs and Yakima agencies and was deputy forest supervisor at Tulalip Agency, Washington. He also served for a time as superintendent of Klamath Agency, Oregon and since 1941 has been chief of the Bureau's Forest and Range Management branch.

Dr. James Raymond Shaw has been assigned from the United States Public Health Service to serve as chief of the Branch of Health of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay announced today.

Dr. Shaw comes to his new assignment from the position of Chief of the Division of Hospitals, Bureau of Medical Services in the PHS. In this position, which he has held for the past year, he has been responsible for the supervision and management of the entire system of PHS hospitals and outpatient clinics.

Glenn L. Emmons, Gallup, New Mexico, today nominated by President Eisenhower to be Commissioner of Indian Affairs, is 570 He was born at Atmore, Alabama in 1895. His family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where he attended public school and the University of New Mexico, leaving the University in 1917 for military service. He was a 1st Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps.

Discharged from the Army in 1929, he went to Gallup, New Mexico, to enter the banking business in which he has continued until now.

Competitive bidding for oil and gas leases in the rich Williston Basin field, under supervision of the Bureau of Indian Affairs is bringing higher financial returns to Fort Peck Indians than if direct negotiations with the Indians for the lands were permitted, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay said today.

Two good illustrations of the value of Bureau supervised sales were revealed this week at a competitive sale on the Fort Peck reservation in eastern Montana.