OPA

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the appointment of Frankie E. Paul, 40, full blood Navajo, to be superintendent Tuba City Agency, Arizona. He has been acting in that capacity since April of this year.

Paul, born and raised in Ramah, New Mexico, is a graduate of Los Angeles State College with a B.A. degree in Education Administration.

He began his Federal service in 1962 as a teacher at the Delcon Elementary School in Winslow, Arizona. In 1964 he transferred to the Fort Defiance Agency as Director of the Head Start Program later becoming an Education Specialist at that same agency. In 1967 he was Assistant Executive Director in the Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity in Window Rock, Arizona and in 1968 became an Education Specialist (Adult Education) at the BIA Navajo Area Office, until the time he became acting Superintendent at Tuba City. In 1970 he completed the Departmental Management Training Program.

In announcing the appointment, the Commissioner said: "I am pleased we have a man of Paul's ability and past experience to undertake the duties as Superintendent at Tuba City."

Paul served in the U.S. Army from 1959 to 1961. He is married to the former Barbara Morris, also a Navajo, they have one son and two daughters.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the appointment of James J. Thomas, 29, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, to head the Field Employment Assistance Office, at Cleveland, Ohio. He has been acting in that capacity since July of this year.

Thomas, born and reared on the Winnebago Indian Reservation, in Nebraska, recently completed the Indian Administrator Development Program of the Bureau.

Thomas joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1967. He headed the Bureau’s Youth Committee and served in an intern capacity at the Billings Area Office, Flathead Agency, and Cleveland Employment Assistance Office, all are BIA field offices. In November 1972 he was appointed Special Assistant to the former Commissioner of Indian Affairs Louis R. Bruce.

Part of his internship included a special eight-month assignment to the Office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, D.C., as an analyst for selected community action programs.

Thomas attended St. Augustine’s Indian Mission on the Winnebago Reservation, and was graduated from Heelan High School, Sioux City, Iowa, in 1963. He served three years in the National Guard and was on active duty at Fort Jackson, S.C., and Fort Polk, La. He has attended George Washington University, Washington, D.C.; Eastern Montana State University, Billings, Mont.; Griswold College, Cleveland, Ohio, and Northern Virginia Community College, Arlington, Va.

In announcing the appointment, the Commissioner said: “I am pleased we have a man of Thomas’ proven ability to undertake the duties of the Cleveland Employment Assistance Office.”

Thomas is married to the former Kathryn King.

A meeting of the general council of the Cherokee Delaware Tribe, scheduled to be held September 11 in Dewey, Okla., has been cancelled, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The purpose of the meeting was to have been to consider charges presented by the tribal grievance committee against the chairman, vice-chairman and secretary of the tribal business committee. The grievance committee, in a telegram to Commissioner Thompson received September 7, rescinded its previous resolution and indicated it had no charges of misconduct against any of the tribal officers.

The Commissioner had called the general council meeting at the request of the grievance committee in accordance with tribal by-laws mandating this action. The revocation of the grievance committee's request removed the basis for the Commissioner's calling of the meeting.

The Commissioner said that he is recommending that the Office of Indian Rights in the Department of Justice take appropriate action "in view of the numerous allegations that have been made" and to determine whether any Federal law, including the 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act, may have been violated.

Richard T. Christman has been appointed superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Papago Agency at Sells, Ariz., Commissioner
of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Christman, 39, replaces Joe Lucero, who retired as agency superintendent earlier this year.

For the past six years Christman served as Education Program Administrator at the Papago Agency. He has been employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs since 1963.

Christman is a graduate of California State Teachers College at California, Pa., and earned a Masters Degree in Indian Education at
Arizona State University at Tempe, Ariz.

Following his undergraduate schooling, he taught school in Pennsylvania for three years and joined the Bureau as an elementary school teacher and coach at the Cheyenne River Agency at Eagle Butte, S.D. He also served as an instructor and Title I Director at the Phoenix Indian School and completed a Bureau field management training program in the Phoenix Area Office before going to Papago.

Dennis L. Petersen, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, has been appointed Tribal Government Services Officer for the Bureau
of Indian Affairs, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Petersen has been Superintendent of the BIA Sisseton Agency in South Dakota since January, 1972.

An Army veteran of both World War II and the Korean conflict, Petersen has worked with Indian communities since 1952 in resource and economic development.

He was with the South Dakota State University Extension Service for many years and then was a project officer, planning officer and assistant
to the area director for the Economic Development Administration at Duluth,Minn. He was an Indian Community Action Program economic development specialist at the University of South Dakota before his 1971 appointment as Superintendent of the BIA Agency at Pierre, South Dakota.

A graduate of South Dakota State University, Petersen has done graduate work in resource development at Colorado State University and the University of Arizona.

Petersen, 50, was Vice President of the Pheasant Council of the South Dakota Boy Scouts of America. He has also been an active member of the
Lions and the American Legion.

David C. Harrison, a member of the Osage Tribe, has been appointed Judicial Services Officer in the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Indian Services, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The position is a new one created to enable the Bureau to work more effectively for the strengthening of tribal judicial systems. Harrison, in the new post, will work with national organizations of Indian judges, tribal chairmen and Indian lawyers.

Harrison is a Harvard Law School graduate who has been a member of the Rights Protection Staff in the BlA's Office of Trust Responsibilities.

A former Marine Corps Captain, Harrison was a Senior Investigator in the New York State Special Commission on Attica in 1971-72. He wrote several chapters on the Commission's final report published by Bantam and Praeger.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson today announced the award of two contracts totaling about $5 million for the grading and draining of a total of nearly 40 miles of road on the Navajo Indian Reservation in both Arizona and New Mexico. The Navajo Reservation, approximately the size of the State of West Virginia, is in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.

The contract for the longest stretch to be graded and drained under one of these two contracts -- 22.3 miles beginning at Pueblo Pintado, N. M. and running southeast to the McKinley-Sandoval County Line four miles west of Torreon, N. M. -- has been let to Owl Constructors of Compton, Calif. for about $2.5 million.

The contract for the shortest stretch 16.25 miles that will link the Navajo Indian communities of Rough Rock and Chilchinbeto, Apache County, Ariz. with Many Farms, Ariz. -- has been let to Nielsons, Inc., Dolores, Colo. also for about $2.5 million.

Thompson indicated that the Bureau hopes to let contracts for bituminous surfacing of these two stretches of road in the next fiscal year.

''The 22 mile New Mexico roadway is the last stretch of the 100-mile BIA Route N9 project," Commissioner Thompson explained. "When completed, this 100 mile stretch of road will be an all-weather highway from U, S, 666, 15.5 miles north of Gallup, N. M., across the eastern part of the Navajo Reservation to Torreon, N.M. via Crownpoint and Pueblo Pintado. There it will connect with another surfaced road which goes into Cuba, N. M.” It also ties in with New Mexico State Highway 44.

The eastern part of the Navajo Reservation has been dependent upon a dirt BIA Route N9. Work began on the 100 mile project April 1963 with the grading and draining of a stretch of road from U. S. 666 to Coyote Canyon.

The contract to grade and drain the road between Many Farms and Rough Rock calls for work to begin at Arizona State Highway No. 63 at Many Farms and extend westerly 13.5 miles toward Rough Rock. What is termed "Rough Rock Spur" will then be built southwesterly nearly 2.4 miles into Rough –Rock Community and then, near the Rough Rock Mutual Help Housing Site turn northwesterly .31 mile to the new Rough Rock High School.

''When completed, the Many Farms - Rough Rock road will be the main route to what have been the isolated communities of Rough Rock." Commissioner Thompson indicated. "It will serve the Navajo Indians and the general public traveling to and from various kinds of work. It will also provide access to medical facilities and serve as a school bus route. In addition, it will provide better access to nearby recreational areas.”

The area the road will serve has been something of a Federal educational center. Many Farms BIA boarding high school was the home of the Navajo Community College which has received considerate Federal funding prior to its move to Tsaile, near Window Rock, Ariz. The high school, plus the BIA elementary boarding school at Many Farms has a combined enrollment of nearly 1,000. Rough Rock Demonstration School enrolls about 400 students in an educational program under contract by BIA to the Navajo Tribe through which young Navajo are taught elements of the main American culture in conjunction with elements of the unique Navajo culture.

"Projects such as these will help Indian reservations catch up with the rest of the country, “ Thompson pointed out. “No local roads were built on Indian reservations from 1900 to 1935, at a time when the rest of the country was being knit together through a paved road system.”

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that proposed regulations for the implementation of the Indian Financing Act are being published in the Federal Register September 3, 1974.

Thompson said that full funding of $80 million is being sought for the Act, which was approved by President Nixon April 12, 1974.

The Indian Financing Act of 1974 itself:

1. Consolidates existing Indian revolving loan funds already administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and authorizes the appropriation of an additional $50 million for the consolidated fund from which direct Federal loans will be made to Indian organizations and individuals.

2. Creates a new Indian Loan Guaranty and Insurance Fund under which up to $200 million in loans made by private lenders to Indian tribes or tribal members can be guaranteed or insured for up to 90 percent of the unpaid principal and interest due.

3. Provides for interest subsidies to reduce the cost of borrowing from private lenders under the Loan Guarantee and Insurance Fund.

4. Establishes the Indian Business Development program which will stimulate and increase Indian entrepreneurship and employment by providing equity capital through non-reimbursable grants to-Indians and Indian tribes to establish and expand profit-making Indian-owned economic enterprises that benefit Indian reservations and communities. The act authorizes appropriations of up to $10 million for Indian Business Development Program grants for each of the next three fiscal years.

Parts 80, 91, and 93 of Title 25, Code of Federal Regulation’s -- the first two of which are revisions -- will implement these provisions. Part 80 sets forth regulations on the Indian Business Development Fund, Part 91 the Revolving Loan Fund, and part 93 the Loan Guarantee and Insurance Fund.

Written comments, suggestions, or objections regarding these parts must be made to the Director, Office of Tribal Resources Development, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C. 20245 within 30 days after the date published in the Federal Register.

Each of the proposed parts defines "Indian" as any person who is a member of any Indian tribe, band, group, pueblo, or community recognized by the Federal Government as eligible for services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and any citizen of the United States who is one-fourth degree or more Alaska Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut. "Tribe" is defined as any Indian tribe, band, group, pueblo, community, or any Alaska Native village recognized by the Federal Government as eligible for services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

When loans are involved, they will be made only when there appears to be a reasonable chance of payment. The applicant must first try to get financing at reasonable rates from other Government sources, such as Farmers Home Administration or Small Business Administration, and usual commercial sources such as banks, and other savings and loan institutions.

Loans from the revolving loan fund will be made only when the applicant is unable to obtain a guaranteed or insured loan. Grants will be made only if they contribute to the economy of a reservation. They are limited to the lesser of $50,000 or 40 percent of the total cost of the project.

Morris Thompson, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, announced today that four American Indian tribal councils in the Great Lakes Area have been awarded contracts totaling over $90,000 under the Tribal Government Development Program of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in order that their governments can be made more effective.

The four tribal councils are Red Cliff Tribal Council, Bayfield, Wisc., $22, 000; Bad River Tribal Council, Ashland, Wisc., $24,850; Bay Mills Executive Council, Brimley, Mich., $25,000; and St. Croix Chippewa Council, Webster, Wisc., $18,850.

"A strong tribal government is the basis of Indian self-determination," Thompson indicated. ''Through contracting procedures tribes are given money to accomplish goals the y themselves set. These can include training in parliamentary procedure for tribal council members, development of ordinances for the Indian reservation governed by the tribal council, development of a constitution for a tribe, development of budgetary processes by the tribal government, and so forth,"

A "bill of rights" for students attending Bureau of Indian Affairs schools has become a part of the Code of Federal Regulations, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

"This new part of the Code," Commissioner Thompson said, "is like our Constitutional Bill of Rights in that it is simple, brief and to the point. It provides a sound base for local school communities --parents, students and staff -- to develop regulations and programs which accord with the law, are respectful of individual rights and promote a spirit of responsibility."

Included in the rights listed in the regulations are: Right to an education, freedom from unreasonable search, reasonable privacy, a safe and secure environment, freedom of religion and culture, freedom of speech and expression, the right to peaceably assemble and to petition the redress of grievances and the right to due process and disciplinary actions which could involve suspension for expulsion.

The essential elements involved in due process are also spelled out in the regulations.

The regulations are applicable, in addition to the Bureau schools, to schools operated by Indian tribal groups which are funded under contract by the Bureau. In 1974 there were 13 such schools.

“The consideration of students’ rights is a fairly recent phenomenon in the United States," Commissioner Thompson said. “Years ago it was accepted that school officials exercised a rather autocratic authority. Our increased consciousness of the rights of minority groups has changed this --and I think it is for the better. We cannot effectively teach democracy in a dictatorial school setting. Maintaining needed discipline within a framework of freedom is a challenge, but one that we must and will meet.”