Past News Items

Wyman J. McDonald, a member of the Flathead Tribe, has been appointed superintendent of the BIA's Northern Idaho Agency at Lapwai, Idaho. He succeeds Jerry Jaeger who is now the BIA area director at Aberdeen, South Dakota.

McDonald was superintendent of the Fort Hall Agency, Idaho since 1976 and had earlier been superintendent of the Mescalero Apache Agency in New Mexico.

A former Marine, McDonald, 42, is a graduate of the University of Montana.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons will leave Washington, September 30 for a. trip of approximately five weeks which will take him into the major Indian areas of 11 western States, it was announced today.

This will complete the assignment given to Commissioner Emmons by President Eisenhower in a letter of September 2 directing him to "meet with each of the major tribal groups of the country" in the near future.

Hopi farmers who have cooperated with conservation and livestock technicians of the Indian Service and increased the productivity of their farm and ranch operations were honored at a recent ceremony at Polacca school on the First Mesa in Arizona.

Evan L. Flory, Chief of the Branch of Land Operations, Bureau of Indian Affairs, was named a fellow of the Soil Conservation Society of America at the Society's annual meeting in Jacksonville, Fla., on November 16, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay announced today.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Ralph A. Tudor today announced that investigation of the 10-year lease of 860.3 acres on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation by Arthur R. Hubbard, Pocatello, Idaho, reveals no grounds for cancellation.

The President's 1987 budget request of $923.7 million in appropriations for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) puts new emphasis on the concepts of Indian self-determination and tribal self-government through the introduction of a new line item category for tribal/agency operations, putting almost one-third of the total BIA budget under more direct control of the tribes.

Reduced Federal participation in Indian affairs was established as the goal of national policy and progress toward this objective was achieved along many lines during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1953, according to annual report of Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay released today.

The aim of the present Administration in the field of Indian affairs is not to "detribalize" the Indian or deprive him of his identity but to give him a wider range of choice and a greater opportunity for fulfilling his own potentialities than he has previously enjoyed, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay emphasized today in making public a letter he wrote November 30 to Oliver La Farge, president of the Association on American Indian Affairs, Inc.

Promotion of Benjamin Reifel, a Sioux Indian and doctor of philosophy in public administration, to be area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Aberdeen, S. Dak., was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

He will succeed William O. Roberts, area director at Aberdeen since February 1954, who retires on August 31 after 38 years of continuous and progressively responsible service with the Indian Bureau.

A proposed draft of legislation that would terminate Federal supervision over a two-year period in four Indian communities of southern Minnesota with a combined population of roughly 300 has been submitted to Congress for consideration, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay said today.

Groups covered by the proposal are the Lower Sioux Community in Redwood and Scott counties, the New Upper Sioux Community in Yellow Medicine County, the Prairie Island Community in Goodhue County, and about 15 individuals living on restricted tracts in Yellow Medicine County.