Past News Items

The consolidation of two Choctaw Indian schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Oklahoma was announced today by Acting Commissioner W. Barton Greenwood. Wheelock Academy, established in Millerton in 1832, will be closed and its students will use dormitory facilities at Jones Academy and attend public schools in nearby Hartshorne.

The move will reduce operating costs per pupil to about half of the present figure and will provide better educational opportunities for the children.

Appointment of Richard D. Butts as superintendent of the Cherokee Indian Agency, Cherokee, N. C., was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Bonus bids of over $27,000,000 were received for oil and gas leases on about 103,000 acres of' Navajo Indian land near the “four corners" area of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today.

The bids, which were opened November 11 at the Indian Bureau's Window Rock (Ariz.) agency office, represented the highest offering ever made for oil and gas leases on Indian lands at a single sale, Acting Bureau Commissioner W. Barton Greenwood reported.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today disapproved a proposed 25-year oil and gas development contract negotiated between the Navajo Indian Tribe and the Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation of Dallas, Texas.

One of his objections was based upon the questionable legality of the proposal. The contract would have embraced 5,300,000 acres, about one-third of the Navajo Reservation which includes land in three States.

Assistance provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to Indian families and individuals voluntarily relocating away from the reservations to metropolitan centers will be much greater in the fiscal year starting July 1 than ever before, Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons announced today.

"Our funds for relocation assistance,” Mr. Emmons said, "have been more than tripled from a level of $1,016,400 available this past year to $3,472,000. This will make it possible for us to broaden the scope and range of our relocation services along lines that we have had in mind for many months.”

A new set of regulations on the leasing of Indian lands held in trust by the Federal Government, which will permit leasing in some cases up to 25 years, in line with a Congressional law enacted last August, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Under the old law, Secretary McKay explained, most leases of Indian land were limited to a five-year period although longer leases were permitted in some cases.

Award of a $648,685.59 contract for construction of 24.0909 miles of road on the Hopi and Navajo Indian Reservations, Navajo County, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project is part of the Indian Bureau's long-range program to improve roads on the two reservations. This is the final section of the road from Keams Canyon to U. S. Highway 66, about six miles east of Holbrook, and makes an all-weather road over this route.

Appointment of Turner Bear, Checotah, Oklahoma, as Principal Chief of the Oklahoma Creek Indian Tribe for a two-year term, beginning immediately, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Fred, A. Seaton.

Mr. Bear is a full-blood Creek Indian who has taken an active interest in tribal affairs and is now a member of the Creek Indian Council. He succeeds Roley Buck who has served as Principal Chief since 1955.

Awarding of a contract for construction of a series of earth fill dam and dike projects on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Fremont County, Wyoming, to C. J. Abbott of Laramie, Wyoming, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Abbott's bid of $37,600 was the lowest of six received by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The others ranged from $38,000 to $62,200.

DeGree Construction Co. of Bend, Oregon, will construct a $69,895 four classroom school building at Warm Springs, Oregon, under a contract awarded by the Indian Bureau, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Six other contractors submitted higher bids ranging from $77,500 to $94,937.