Past News Items

Clyde W. Pensoneau, a member of the Indian Bureau staff at the Colorado River Agency, Parker, Arizona, will become superintendent of the Hopi Agency, Keams Canyon, Arizona, on May 23, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay announced today.

Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel today announced an FY 1989 budget for the Department that maintains funding levels for the Department's key operating programs, improves management of the Nation's water resources and adds funds to help eliminate hazardous wastes and contaminants affecting Interior activities.

I have been informed that demonstrations are planned sometime this weekend in Washington, D.C., and in other parts of the country protesting the resettlement of those Navajo families residing on land partitioned to the Hopi Indian Tribe as a result of the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (P.L. 93-531) passed by the U.S. Congress in 1974.

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.

Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan said today his Department looks forward to a major role in implementing the America the Beautiful initiative in President Bush's fiscal year 1991 budget. "With increased funding for land acquisition, recreation enhancement and resource protection, the President shows his strong commitment to meeting the diverse Federal land management challenges of the 1990s," Lujan said.

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 today announced the appointment of Richard Do Butts as superintendent of the Red Lake Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs, at Red Lake, Minn. Butts will be succeeded as superintendent at the Umatilla Agency, Pendleton, Oregon by Clarence W. Ringey realty assistant at Consolidated Chippewa Agency, Case Lake, Minn.

Butts succeeds Frell M. Owl who was recently transferred as Red Lake superintendent to the same position at the Northern Idaho Agency, Lapwai, Idaho.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced the award of four contracts for the construction of school facilities on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico. The total amount of the awards is $1,647,791.

This is the first step in the development of the Navajo Emergency Educational Program.

The awards are as follows:

Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons of the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today that the museum of the Northern Plains Indians at Browning, Montana, will continue to be operated by the Bureau without any change except a reduction in staff required by reduced appropriations for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

It had been proposed to transfer management responsibility for the museum to the Arts and Crafts Board, created in the Department of the Interior by the act of August 27, 1935 (49 Stat. 891).

Three additional personnel moves involved in the reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs were announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

W. Wendell Palmer, superintendent, Wind River Agency, Fort Washakie, Wyo., will be transferred to the same position at Klamath Agency, Oreg., replacing Erastus J. Diehl who retires June 30. Glenn R. Landbloom, Bureau extension and credit officer at Aberdeen, s. Pak., will replace Palmer. Both transfers are effective June 13.