Past News Items

Interior Secretary James Watt, and Ken Smith, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, flew into Navajo land for a brief visit September 17. En route from Phoenix to Denver, the Navajo stopover marked another leg of Watt's three-week tour of western states.

Watt was given a blessing by a Navajo medicine man, high on a chilly ridge facing a steep canyon wall. He and Smith visited the hogan of a traditional Navajo couple -- a home without electricity or running water and then were taken to the council chamber for a special evening session of the Navajo Tribal Council.

A newly developed automatic data processing system for the Bureau of Indian Affairs' social services programs will be implemented October 1 in all areas except Alaska, Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Ken Smith announced today.

With the new system in place, the processing of a request for general assistance, which in the present manual system takes 3-6 weeks before delivery of the first check, will be completed in 2-3 days.

The American Indian Task Force of the Small Community and Rural Development Policy (SCRD) has focused its activity on four high priority concerns of American Indians, according to an updated report from Deputy Assistant Secretary Thomas Fredericks. As task force co-chairman, he identified the four concerns as 1) tribal consultation, 2) information systems, 3) Federal assistance management systems (FAMS), and 4) housing.

The Administration established the Indian Task Force last August to improve coordination and delivery of Federal services to American Indians.

Appointment of Leon V. Langan, Gallup, N. Mex., and Thomas M. Reid, Albuquerque, N, Mex., as consultants to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L, Emmons was announced today by Acting Secretary or the Interior Ralph A. Tudor.

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.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced that membership rolls will be required for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians under recently enacted legislation providing for termination of Federal supervision over the property and affairs of western Oregon Indians in the next two years.

Distribution of tribal funds to individual members of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin under Public Law 399, approved June 17, is going forward smoothly and satisfactorily, Acting Secretary of the Interior Ralph A. Tudor announced today.

The enactment which establishes a program for terminating Federal supervision over Menominee affairs before the end of 1958, also provides for an immediate payment of $1,500 to each tribal member from Menominee funds on deposit in the United states Treasury.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay will arrive in Anchorage, Alaska, on July 17, for a ten-day inspection tour of the Territory.

In addition to surveying the Department’s Alaskan activities, the itinerary has been planned to provide for meeting with government personnel and with Alaska business groups, natives and other citizens.

Mrs. McKay will accompany the Secretary on the tour which will end on July 27. William Strand, director of the Office of Territories, Department of the Interior, which has immediate supervision of Alaskan affairs, will also be in the party.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay has instructed three Department of the Interior officials to meet in Portland, March 10, to ascertain the facts in a complaint raised by Indians of the Warm Springs Reservation they are not getting fair prices for the timber sold from their lands.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons announced today that Allan M. Adams will move on November 20 from Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota, where he has been real property officer, to be superintendent of the Winnebago Agency, Nebraska, replacing Victor E. Godfrey.

Godfrey, who has been in charge at Winnebago for nearly two years, will transfer on the same date to be real property officer in the Bureau's area office at Aberdeen, S. Dak.