Past News Items

The award of a $143,750 contract for construction of a power substation and installation of equipment at the Colorado River Indian Agency, Parker, Ariz., was announced today by the Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

The contract calls for construction of a 20,000 kilowatt substation and installation of equipment. The substation will receive electronic power from a Bureau of Reclamation 161,000-volt transmission line and reduce the power to 34,500 and 69,000 volts for transmission through the Colorado River Indian Irrigation Project power system.

Ernest Childers, an Oklahoma Indian who holds the Congressional Medal of Honor for Valor in World War II, has joined the Department of the Interior's Job Corps staff as a regional coordinator, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

Two newly-appointed members of the Department of the Interior's Indian Arts and Crafts Board--Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., and Dr. Mitchell A. Wilder-- attended their first Board meeting Friday, January 27, with Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall. The five-member Board promotes the development of Indian arts and crafts by providing professional advisory and technical assistance in production, promotion and marketing.

The five members (commissioners) are appointed by the Secretary of the Interior and serve four-year terms without salary or fee.

Federal supervision over the 600-acre Quartz Valley Indian Rancheria in California has ended, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

Located in Siskiyou County, the rancheria is owned in common by 49 American Indians descendants of Karok, Shasta and Upper Klamath Indian groups. Termination of Federal responsibility is in accordance with the California Rancheria Act of 1958 as amended in 1964.

The Quartz Valley area is the 32nd Indian land parcel in California to be relieved of Federal trusteeship.

This year's Miss Indian America, Wahleah Lujan, 18, from Taos, N. Mex. will pay her first visit to Washington today through Tuesday, Jan. 31, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett announced today.

While here, the Ft. Lewis College (Colorado) sophomore will meet members of the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee; will be welcomed to the District by Commissioner Walter Tobriner, Friday at 2:00 P.M. in the District offices; and feted at a reception given Saturday night by the American Indian Society at the home of its president, Mitchell Bush, Jr.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs today announced the reassignment of three career officials to posts in the Southwest.

Theodore B. White will move to the post of superintendent of the Bureau's San Carlos Agency (Apache) at San Carlos, Ariz. The appointment becomes effective January 1, 1967. For the past year he has been employed as a community living and housing guidance specialist in the Washington, D.C., Central Office of the BIA.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has authorized a $44,000 contract with the Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, D.C., to examine the needs in English language teaching programs for American Indians.

In announcing the contract, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett said:

Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe has notified the Governor of Alaska that the State will be allowed an additional 90 days --until April 1 --to exercise an exclusive preference right to select lands described in Section 11 of the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act.

Generally, these Section 11 lands are the 9 townships surrounding Alaska Native Villages. Until October 1, 1976, these lands were held by the Federal Government exclusively for Alaska Natives to make selections.

Chemawa School at Salem, Oregon is the oldest Indian school in the United States --soon to celebrate its centennial --but it is, in at least one way, like an adolescent.

Chemawa is going through a difficult time of transition.

The final environmental impact statement for the Westmoreland Resources
Crow Ceded Area coal leases, pertaining to more than 30,000 acres of land in
Bighorn County, Montana, is now available to the public, Commissioner of
Indian Affairs Ben Reifel announced today.