Past News Items

The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and the Department of the Interior are now in agreement on a plan developed by the Tribe for future control of its property and service functions after Federal trusteeship is terminated next year, Acting Secretary of the Interior Elmer F. Bennett announced today.

The plan was developed by the Tribe under terms of the Menominee Termination Act of 1954 and was submitted to the Secretary of the Interior on July 28. It includes six major parts.

The Department of the Interior announced today the award of a $372,551 contract for the construction of educational facilities at Rosebud, South Dakota.

The Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior announced today the third set of awards which are being made "in recognition of long and outstanding services in the preservation, encouragement and development of the arts and crafts of the American Indians."

These awards, consisting of certificates of appreciation, are being presented today in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Recipients, and the categories for which they on, include:

Award of a $181,400 contract for construction of a new 80-pupil dormitory and additional dining facilities to provide for Indian school children at Ramah, New Mexico, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Completion of the work will make it possible for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to accommodate additional children at the existing Ramah facility while they attend the local public schools under arrangements worked out with the school district. This will also relieve the present overcrowding.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons today strongly urged the Army Corps of Engineers to take action "at the earliest possible date” to eliminate a flood threat to tribally developed pasturelands on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida.

Bonus bids running as high as $5,505.55 per acre have been received for oil and gas leases on lands of the Navajo Indian Tribe in Utah and New Mexico which brought tribally rejected bids of only $257 an acre just 13 months ago, the Department of the Interior announced today.

These were part of the results of a January 13 bid opening at Window Rock, Arizona, involving 36 Navajo tracts with a total of 72,370 acres. The total of the high bids received was $3,603,927.54.

Appointment of Kenneth L. Payton as superintendent of the Mescalero Indian Agency, Mescalero, N. Mex., effective November 12 was reported today by the Department of the Interior.

He succeeds Hobart Johnson who transferred from Mescalero in September to be superintendent of the Indian Bureau's Intermountain School at Brigham, Utah.

Justifiable pride in the many historic accomplishments of Oklahoma Cherokee Indians must not be permitted to divert attention from the problems of present-day Cherokees struggling to make a livelihood on unproductive lands, Philleo Nash, Commissioner-designate of the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior said today.

Promotion of Otto K, Weaver, an II-year veteran of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to superintendent of the Crow Agency in Montana, effective August 6, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

He succeeds Clyde W. Hobbs who was recently transferred as superintendent to the Wind River Agency, Fort Washakie, Wyoming.

The Department of the Interior today announced the revocation of a provision in Federal regulations which for many years has limited the appearance of professional attorneys before courts of Indian offenses on Indian reservations.

Courts of Indian offenses are organized and staffed by Indian tribal groups under regulations promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior. Fifteen such courts are now in operation.