Past News Items

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett announced today a series of shifts in supervisory personnel affecting four Indian reservations and one Area Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Two contracts totaling $367,043 have been awarded by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs for road construction projects on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, S. D. and the Yakima Reservation in Washington.

A $247, 885 contract for crushed rock and bituminous mat surfacing of approximately 15.5 miles of the Signal Peak road on the Yakima Reservation was awarded to Bohannon Asphalt Paving, Inc.; of Yakima, Wash. Five bids were received, ranging to a high of $298,520.

BIA SCHOOL OFFICIAL NAMED TO INTER-STATE BOARD--Dr. William J. Benham, Jr., Director of Schools for the Navajo Area of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' school system recently was appointed to the board of directors of the Southwestern Cooperative Educational Laboratory. Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico are represented on the 16-member panel.

The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs today announced the award of two road construction contracts on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and the Colville Indian Reservation in eastern Washington.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, has announced transfers of four men which will affect two field offices and two Central Office posts.

William T. Schlick of Iowa has been promoted to a newly established position of Assistant to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C. He will be staff assistant for liaison and program coordination with other Federal agencies, including the Office of Economic Opportunity. Since January, 1965, Schlick has been the Bureau's Job Corps Conservation Center Officer.

“Indians of Arizona," latest in a current series of publications from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, turns the spotlight on the State with the largest Indian population.

Names that ring through the history of the American Southwest crowd the 24 pages of this profusely illustrated booklet. Here are the Apaches, whose very name once brought terror to westward bound settlers; the peaceful Hopis of the sky-reaching mesa villages; the Navajos, now the largest Indian tribe; the desert-dwelling Papagos; the agrarian Pimas; and the canyon-dwelling Havasupais and Hualapais.

The Department of the Interior today announced a proposal to adopt new regulations governing the use of Indian government-owned fishing grounds by the Yakima, Umatilla, and Warm Springs Tribes and by other Columbia River Indians in the Pacific Northwest.

The lands affected are in Washington and Oregon, are under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior, and were made available to the Indians in lieu of fishing grounds flooded or destroyed when Bonneville Dam was constructed during the 1930's.

A $261,176 contract has been awarded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for a road improvement project on the Fort Hall Reservation in southeastern Idaho. The reservation is the home of about 1,770 Shoshone and Bannock Indians.

Contract specifications call for crushed rock base and bituminous plant-mix surfacing of slightly over 12 miles of the Ross Fork and Lone Pine roads, located one mile east of the Fort Hall Indian Agency.

This project is part of the Bureau’s long- term program to improve transportation on Indian reservations through better roads.

A $125,049 contract for grading and surfacing roads on the Uintah and Ouray I Reservation in Utah was announced today by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Improvements will include a five-mile stretch of Route 7 which provides access to picturesque Uintah Canyon and a seven-mile section of Route 17, from Neola toward Big Springs.

Better roads will open an exceptionally scenic area for which the Uintah and Ouray Tribe has recreational development plans.

The Seminole Indians of the Hollywood Reservation in Florida this week signed a contract with Amphenol Corporation of Chicago to lease 10 acres of tribal property for industrialization.

This is the Tribe's first venture into economic development.