Past News Items

Appointment of Peru Farver, a veteran of 44 years' service with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to head the Bureau's work in tribal affairs was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Mr. Farver, a Choctaw Indian, first entered the Bureau service in 1910 as a teacher at Union Agency, Muskogee, Okla., and has been superintendent at Fort Hall Agency, Fort Hall, Idaho, since August 1953. In the years between he held a variety of assignments and was superintendent at Tomah Agency, S. Dak.; Red Lake, Minn.; Cheyenne River, S. Dak., and Belcourt, N. Dak.

Promotion of Theodore B. Hall from the position of Superintendent, Osage Indian Agency, Pawhuska., Oklahoma, to Assistant Area Director for the Indian Bureau at Gallup, New Mexico, effective October 30, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

A successor to Mr. Hall at Osage Agency has not yet been selected.

Substantial progress in the Department's program to provide educational facilities for 22,000 Navajo children during this school year is being made, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay said today.

As of October 15 about 19,000 children are enrolled in public, Federal and mission schools, both on and off the reservation.

Expansion of reservation schools scheduled for completion in November will accommodate another 1,500 children.

The Alaska Native Service of the Bureau of Indian Affairs has completed arrangements for hospitalizing 290 Alaska native tuberculosis patients under contract in the Laurel Beach, Riverton and Firlands State Sanatoria at Seattle, Wash., Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay announced today.

Movement of the patients from Anchorage, the Territorial collecting point, by plane to Seattle will begin shortly and will involve about 75 patients during the remainder of the month.

The same number will be moved in November and December and the final group of 65 in January 1955.

Consolidation of the two Minnesota Indian agencies, now located at Cass Lake and Red Lake, in a new headquarters at Bemidji on December 1 was announced today by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons.

Promotion of Harry L. Stevens from the position of superintendent, Papago Indian Agency, Sells, Arizona, to assistant area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Phoenix, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Albert M. Hawley, reservation principal at San Carlos Agency, San Carlos, Ariz., succeeds Stevens at Papago.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced that the Crow Creek Indian Agency now located at Fort Thompson, South Dakota, will be moved about December 1, to Pierre, S. Dak.

A $3,000,000 program of public school expansion to accommodate nearly 3,000 Navajo Indian children by September 1955, in communities of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado bordering the Navajo Reservation was announced today by Acting Secretary of the Interior Fred G. Aandahl.

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.