Past News Items

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.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Hatfield Chilson today announced Departmental approval of a resolution adopted by the Rosebud Sioux Indian Tribe of South Dakota calling for cancellation of grazing leases and permits granted in the future to nonmembers operating on the reservation if they fail to pay a tax imposed by the tribal organization.

Sproul Construction Company, Albuquerque, N. Mex., has been awarded a $780,500 contract for a major expansion and renovation of the Indian Bureau's boarding school plant at Lukachukai, Ariz., on the Navajo Reservation, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Sproul's bid was the lowest of 11 received. The others ranged from $810,188 to $972,000.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay announced the details of a proposed $10,000 program under the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1954 to improve and maintain roads on Indian reservations in 24 states.

Award of a $344,435.33 contract for irrigation construction work on the Hogback Unit of the Navajo Indian Reservation near Shiprock, New Mexico, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The Confederated Indian Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon were warmly commended today by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior for the "progressive step" they have taken in entering into a $100,000 contract with Oregon State College for a study of the human and natural resources on the reservation.

Award of a $33,014.25 bridge and flood-control construction project on the Hoopa Indian Reservation, Humboldt County, California, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project, on the main route to Hoopa Agency, involves the construction of a continuous slab bridge on existing substructures, and protecting levees which will include roadway approaches to the bridge and the developed areas inundated by the floods of the winter of 1955-56. The road is on a school bus route and serves a substantial number of the reservation population.

Enactment of legislation that would add about 845 acres of public land to two Indian reservations in southern California and 80 acres to a reservation in Nevada has been recommended to Congress by the Department of the Interior, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.