Past News Items

Martin M. Zoller, Superintendent of the Klamath Indian Agency in Oregon since 1956, will be the new superintendent at the Uintah and Ouray Agency, Fort Duchesne, Utah, effective October 4, the Department of the Interior announced today.

He succeeds Darrell Fleming who recently transferred to the Cherokee Agency in North Carolina.

The Department of the Interior has recommended changing the law under which adult Indians are being provided with vocational training at Federal expense to establish three priorities of eligibility among the Indian candidates, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.

First priority would be given to Indians residing on trust or restricted lands r Federal lands under jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst announced today that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has contracted with the University of Idaho for a comprehensive survey of the human and physical resources of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in southeastern Idaho.

In commenting on the significance of the contract, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs H. Rex Lee pointed out that for several years the Bureau has been seeking a more effective way to help the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation in improving their economic and social status.

The Department of the Interior today announced two actions looking toward a greater equalization in the value of extremely valuable individual Indian land holdings on the Agua Caliente Reservation at Palm Springs, California.

One was the recent submission to Congress of a report favoring the enactment, with amendments, of H.R. 5557, a bill that deals with the equalization problem.

The second action taken was the adoption in final form of a set of administrative instructions for equalization. These were published as a proposal in the Federal Repository last January 23.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst today announced approval of the action of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation of Oregon in leasing 344 acres at McNary Dam town site for industrial development purposes to two California trailer manufacturing companies.

All title source documents and records pertaining to trust or restricted lands on 21 Indian reservations have now been transferred from Washington, D. C. , to area offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Aberdeen, S. Dak.; Billings, Mont. j Gallup, N. Mex.; and Portland, Oreg., the Department of the Interior announced today.

The transfer, Commissioner Philleo Nash emphasized, has involved only the land records formerly maintained in Washington and not those kept at the Bureau's agency offices.

Words are inadequate to express the pleasure with which I come to Lewiston to talk to my friends in the National Congress of American Indians.

Appointment of George A. Boyce, superintendent of the 2,000-pupil Intermountain Indian boarding school at Brigham, Utah, to develop a new instruction program in Indian arts and crafts at Santa Fe, New Mexico, was announced today by the Department of the Interior. The appointment will be effective August 6.

Secretary of the Interior, Stewart L. Udall announced his support today of legislation that would make it possible to revive and strengthen the program of Federal loans to Indian tribes to help finance job-creating enterprises and greater development of human and natural resources on Indian reservations.

The Secretary's position was set forth in a favorable report on S. 1540, a bill that would remove the present $10 million legal limit on appropriations for the revolving loan fund of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Department of the Interior today announced its opposition to legislation now pending in Congress (S. 381) which would provide for Federal subsidies to States to finance the costs of law enforcement on Indian reservations.