OPA

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced the award of a $737,093 contract for construction of a new school at Tyonek, Alaska, a native community on Cook Inlet.

The new building replaces a dilapidated structure that was built in 1930. Contract specifications call for: three classrooms; a kitchen; multi-purpose room; library; offices; a gymnasium with a stage; a storage area and janitor facilities. Also included will be a sewerage system; utilities; concrete sidewalks; play areas and site grading. There are now approximately 60 Indian children enrolled at the Tyonek School.

Tyonek villagers, who last year accepted $11 million in oil and gas bids for some 8,500 acres of their lands, will contribute $143,965 toward construction of the new facility.

Successful bidder was Corvi Construction Co., Inc., of Spenard, Alaska. Three other bids were received, ranging to a high of $838,000.

Tyonek School is one of five in the Kenai Borough scheduled for transfer of title to the State of Alaska next year. The schools are now operated by the State but funded by Federal monies administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which holds title of ownership, Under the Johnson-O’Malley Act, Federal funds are made available to support needy public school districts with large enrollments of American Indian, Aleut, and Eskimo children.

On July 1, 1966, five similarly funded schools in Kodiak Borough will be transferred to State ownership.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced three appointments to high-level positions in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and said the appointments were "key steps in making the Bureau more responsive to the needs of the Indian people."

Named to the top-level posts under Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert LaFollette Bennett were:

-- Theodore W. Taylor, a career civil servant, to be Deputy Commissioner. Taylor has been Assistant to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution since 1959, and is a veteran of Interior and BIA service.

-- Carl L. Marburger, currently Assistant Superintendent of Schools at Detroit, to be Assistant Commissioner for Education.

-- William R. Carmack, Administrative Assistant to Senator Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma, to be Assistant Commissioner for Social and Governmental Affairs.

“The choice of these three officials marks the culmination of a Nationwide search for the finest talent we could secure in an effort to strengthen the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a top team," Secretary Udall said.

Deputy Commissioner Taylor holds a doctoral degree from Harvard University with a dissertation based on the regional organization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His Government service, which began with the Rural Electrification Administration in 1936, includes 13 years in the Department of the Interior.

Taylor served four years, from 1946 to 1950, as Executive Officer of Interior's Office of Territories, followed by six years as Chief of Management Planning for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1956 he began a three-year tour of duty as mobilization officer for defense electric power in the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Power. Before joining Interior, Taylor worked as administrative assistant to the director of the Agriculture Department's Federal Extension Service. He holds degrees from the University of Arizona and Syracuse University as well as Harvard. A native of Berkeley, California, he grew up in Tucson, Arizona.

Marburger, who has a doctorate in education from Wayne State University, has been Assistant Superintendent of Schools for Special Projects at Detroit since 1964. He has devoted most of his efforts during recent years to improvement of educational opportunities for the disadvantaged. He has been serving as a consultant to the U. S. Office of Education on implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. From March through December of 1964 he was a special assistant to the Commissioner of Education. He has also headed the Task Force for the Disadvantaged, a joint committee of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the Office of Economic Opportunity.

A former classroom teacher in Detroit, and later a high school principal, Marburger in 1963 was named director of curriculum studies for that city's schools, and helped establish the Great Cities Project--a tailored program of education for socially and economically underprivileged students in public schools, in which about 20 major cities participated, with Ford Foundation funding. His published works include papers on education in depressed areas and upgrading of public schools in pursuit of excellence. He is a native of Detroit and attended schools and college there. He will head up a network of more than 250 Indian day and boarding schools, most of whose pupils must overcome cultural and language barriers to achieve their full potential.

Carmack's newly created position includes responsibility for Indian participation in the War on Poverty, Indian employment assistance and welfare, and tribal operations and community development.

He has worked for Senator Harris since the latter's election in 1964, dealing with the problems of constituents, who include many Indian groups. Prior to his Senate staff service, Carmack was director of the University of Oklahoma's Human Relations Center, which originated and developed five Indian adult education centers serving communities through the western half of that State. The centers provided training and consultation for communities facing various kinds of potential conflicts, such as race relations, religion in the public schools and other problems.

Carmack established the Human Relations Center and directed its activities three years. Formerly he was an associate professor of speech at the University of Oklahoma. He has a doctorate in communication from the University of Illinois, and bachelor's and master's degrees from Abilene Christian College in Abilene, Texas, and Florida State University, respectively. A native of Decatur, Alabama, he grew up in Lawton, Oklahoma, and attended public schools there.

An old Indian saying goes, "Give us good roads and we'll take care of our other problems."

While more than roads are needed to meet the many problems of the Indian people, a vigorous road-building program is doing much to improve the living conditions on the Navajo Reservation, largest and most heavily populated in the country, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Before 1950, the vast interior of the Navajo Reservation, which is roughly equivalent to the size of West Virginia, was virtually devoid of roads.

Indeed, the roads were so bad that one steep hill between Gallup and Ganado earned the Navajo name, "The Place Where the Mexicans Cry." The Navajo locals started calling it that when they witnessed a group of Mexican teamsters literally break down and cry from frustration when they couldn't push their wagons out of the mud. They were on the way to deliver supplies to the Ganado Trading Post.

In the intervening 15 years, some 600 miles of paved highways have been constructed. Good roads are beginning to crisscross the reservation where once there were only wagon trails. Hogans and trading posts, which were once far removed from the outside world, now have paved highways running by the back door.

Many Navajo families have moved from interior reaches of the reservation up to the highway. Good roads have enabled them to get to the hospital when they need a doctor.

The location of BIA boarding schools has been one of the determining factors in the location of new roads on the reservation. For example, a 39-mile stretch of paved highway from Navajo Route 8 westward to Pinon, in almost the geographical center of the reservation, serves seven schools. All-weather roads have contributed materially to increased enrollment of Navajo children in reservation schools.

A thousand miles of bus routes still need to be built to serve the present 69 boarding and day schools and 15 public schools on the reservation.

Roads are being built into some of the deepest recesses of the reservation although some areas--such as Black Mountain and Navajo Mountain--are still far removed from outside influences.

One benefit to the Navajo people from the road-building program has been the boom in tourists, who are coming to the reservation in increasing numbers to see some of this country's most scenic views.

On Navajo Route 1 (also called Arizona #64) which traverses the reservation from Tuba City to Shiprock, a count made last summer showed that 1,500 cars traveled the highway in a single day. Before this 185-mile stretch was completed, about three years ago, nearly all of the traffic was local.

Some of the attractions along this route, which tourists may visit by driving only a few miles off the main highway, are the Four Corners Monument, Monument Valley and the Indian ruins at Betatakin.

In the planning stage is a route intersecting Navajo Route 1 to Page, Ariz. When this road is built, an all-weather highway will link two major recreation areas--Glen Canyon Dam on the Utah-Arizona border and Navajo Dam in northern New Mexico.

When U.S. 64 is completed across northern New Mexico and tied in with Navajo Route 1, a large section of the country, containing many major tourist attractions, will be open to the public.

Two major arteries are being constructed north-south across the reservation-- Navajo Route 12 and 8. Ultimately, there will be a scenic 141-mile highway running by the base of the Chuska Range, one of the most beautiful areas of the reservation. Two other manmade lakes--Red Lake and Tsaile Lake--also border this route.

The Long Range Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act of 1950, which appropriated $20 million for road construction, and the Anderson-Udall bill of 1957, an amendment to that act, which appropriated another $20 million, have made possible construction of Navajo Routes #1 and #3, the major arteries of the reservation.

Some secondary road construction on the reservation was financed in the early 1950's by the Atomic Energy Commission to reach rich uranium deposits at Cove, Arizona; Mexican Hat to Monument Valley and Teec Nos Pos to Monument Valley. The BIA has also cooperated with State Governments and oil companies in building roads and bridges in the oil fields near Aneth, Utah, and near Farmington, New Mexico.

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.

James D. Cornett, formerly a land operations officer with the Zuni Indian Agency in New Mexico, has been appointed superintendent of the Fort Totten (Sioux) Reservation in North Dakota. This is a new position, created to raise the status of the Reservation to agency level. For the past several years the affairs of the Fort Totten Sioux have been administered through the Turtle Mountain Agency at Belcourt, N. Dak.

Don Y. Jensen, superintendent of the Cherokee Agency in western North Carolina, will be assigned to the Aberdeen, S. Dak., Area Office as Assistant Director for Economic Development, effective June 19. He will fill a vacancy left by Owen Morken, who has become Director of the Juneau Area Office. A replacement for Jensen at Cherokee has not yet been named.

James P. Howell, superintendent of the Fort Berthold (Sioux) Agency in South Dakota, will become superintendent of the Tuba City agency (Navajo) in Arizona, effective June 6. He will take up the post vacated through the retirement of Clinton O. Talley.

Slated to succeed Howell at Fort Berthold is James R. Keaton, former Assistant Superintendent of the Western Washington Agency which serves the Indian fishing communities of the Puget Sound region. The transfer is effective on June 19.

Kenneth L. Payton was transferred last month from the Mescalero Apache agency in southern New Mexico to head up the United Pueblos Agency with headquarters in Albuquerque. His move fills the vacancy created when Walter 0. Olson was named head of the newly established Albuquerque Area office several months ago. No replacement has yet been named for the Mescalero Agency.

Biographic Data on New Appointees:

Cornett, a native of Oklahoma, received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1952 from Oklahoma State University at Stillwater. He joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs that same year as a soil conservationist at the Fort Peck Indian Agency in Montana. He later served in a similar post at the Blackfeet Indian Agency in Browning, Mont.; and as Land Operations Officer at the Zuni Agency, in New Mexico.

Jensen, who has been superintendent at the Cherokee Agency since 1963, is a native of Castle Dale, Utah. He joined the Bureau in 1947 as a soil conservationist for the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Agencies in Montana. He has served as soil conservationist at the Blackfeet Agency, Montana; land operations officer at Standing Rock Agency, N. Dak.; and superintendent of the Northern Cheyenne Agency, Lame Deer, Mont.

Howell, an Oklahoma native of Indian descent, has been with the Bureau of Indian Affairs since graduating from Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kans., in 1940, with the exception of four years of military service. His assignments have included administrative posts at Haskell; Western Washington Agency, Everett, Wash.; Fort Belknap Consolidated Agency, Harlem, Mont.; and as assistant personnel officer at the Aberdeen, S. Dak., Area office.

Keaton, also an Oklahoman by birth, received a Bachelor of Science degree from Utah State University in 1949. From that year until joining the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1952 he was employed as a soil scientist with the Weber Basin Project in Utah and by Swift and Company in Portland, Ore. His first Bureau assignment was as a soil scientist with the Colville Indian Agency at Nespelem, Wash. He has since held posts as a soil conservationist and real estate specialist at the Yakima and Klamath Agencies and at the Muskogee Area office in Oklahoma. Following an 18 month management training assignment in Washington, D. C., Keaton was named Assistant Superintendent at the Western Washington Agency, his last post prior to the present transfer.

Payton, an Oklahoman, received a B.S. degree from Oklahoma A&M College at Stillwater in 1949. The following January he accepted a post as soil conservationist with the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Window Rock, Ariz. He served with the Navajo Agency until March 1958, when he was reassigned as land operations officer at the Consolidated Ute Agency, Colo. In November 1961, he became superintendent of the Mescalero Agency, in New Mexico, a post he has occupied until the present reassignment.

LOWER BRULE INDIANS TO BE TRAINED--The CalDak Electronics Corporation of Pierre, S. D., recently negotiated a $6,950 contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide on-the-job training for a group of South Dakota Indians. The trainees, 16 Sioux from the Lower Brule Reservation, will learn to assemble electronics components while employed in the company's plant on their reservation. The opportunity to learn while earning is a part of the Bureau's employment assistance program aimed at expanding job opportunities for reservation Indians.

LEGAL AID FOR INDIANS--Indigent Montana Indians will benefit from a project soon to be undertaken by the University of Montana's School of Law. The University recently received a $54,150 grant from the National Defender Project, sponsored by the Ford Foundation to help those who are charged with crimes and cannot afford counsel.

The grant will be used for a three-year program to provide law students to aid assigned attorneys in these cases. The students will carry out investigations and perform legal research.

Charles L. Decker, Director of the National Defender Project, said the grant was the first under the Project to consider the plight of indigent Indians charged with crimes.

INDIAN CATTLE OPERATIONS PROFITABLE--Figures recently released by two Indian cattle enterprises indicate profitable operations during 1965.

The Mescalero Apache Cattle Growers, a cooperative on New Mexico's Mescalero Reservation, reported that sales topped $370,000 last year, thus wiping out a 1964 loss. The cooperative's cash position was sizably improved.

Meanwhile, on the San Carlos Reservation in neighboring Arizona, livestock-men sold nearly 10,000 head of cattle for $1.2 million. The San Carlos Apache Tribe, which operates a 16,000-head tribal herd, cooperates with the University of Arizona and the U. S. Department of Agriculture in a performance testing program. In 1955 the Indians set aside a purebred herd of 600 Hereford cows which has since been used as a foundation for the production of high quality replacement bulls. The objective is to increase beef production through scientific selection of breeding stock.

SECOND BRANCH STORE FOR NAVAJO CRAFTS GUILD--Construction is well under way at Kayenta, Ariz., of the second branch store to be operated by the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild. The store's spacious sales area will include a modern sunken lounge with cone-shaped metal fireplace. The building also will provide living quarters for a manager-custodian and a workroom for craftsmen.

Designed by the Architectural Section of the Navajo Tribes Department of Design and Construction and built by local workmen, it will be completed by early July.

The Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild was established in 1941 to promote the sales of quality silver work and Navajo rugs. The Guild's main building is at Window Rock; and a branch store has been opened at Cameron, Ariz.

COLVILLE CLEANUP CAMPAIGN--President Johnson's program to keep America Beautiful is off to a flying start on the Colville Reservation in Washington.

A hard working five-man crew has been disposing of unsightly trash on roadsides, lawns and fields. Salaries for the workmen are paid by the Colville Federated Tribes, and three trucks were provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

To date the crew has located, gathered and buried an accumulation of junk that includes 600 rusting car bodies, numerous refrigerators and other abandoned items. Reservation dwellers are urged to help eliminate other eyesores in yards, fields and along roadsides.

The campaign was sparked by community rallies, poster contests in schools, and publicity through local newspapers and radio stations. Pleased with the improved appearance of their reservation, the Colville Indians plan to continue the campaign throughout the summer.

ANNUAL INDIAN ART EXHIBITION--Rafael Medina, an Indian artist from New Mexico's Zia Pueblo, was named winner of the $250 grand award in the Twenty-First Annual American Indian Artists Exhibition at Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Okla.

The winning painting, in casein, is entitled, "Answered Prayer." It was the first major award in nationwide competition for Medina, a self-taught artist.

Other awards included: a special trophy to Oscar Howe, Sioux artist from Vermillion, S. D., for outstanding contributions to the annual competition, $150 first place and $75 second place awards for regional paintings, for a special category recognizing new trends in American Indian art and for sculpture. Winners were:

First in Plains paintings, Blackbear Bosin, Kiowa-Comanche artist from Wichita, Kans.; second, David E. Williams, Kiowa-Apache, Los Angeles;

First in Woodland paintings, Jerome R. Tiger, Creek-Seminole, Muskogee, Okla.; second, Fred Beaver, Creek-Seminole, from Ardmore, Okla.;

First in Southwest paintings, Raymond Naha, Hopi, Gallup, N. Mex.; second, Harrison Begay, Navajo, Ganado, Ariz.;

First in special category, Joan Hill, Cherokee-Creek, Muskogee, Okla.; second, Valjean McCarty Hessing, Choctaw, Owasso, Okla.;

First in sculpture, Robert D. Shorty, Navajo, Santa Fe, N. Mex., second, John D. Free, Osage, Pawhuska, Okla.

SANTA FE INSTITUTE STUDENTS TAKE HONORS--Students of the Institute of American Indian Arts at Santa Fe, N. Mex., won a total of 10 merit awards, plus )ne honorable mention in a Statewide Creative Writing Contest sponsored by the New Mexico State University. There were 524 entries from 28 schools, and 24 merit awards were given. The winning short stories and poems will appear in a publication of the State University, with cover design by an Institute art student.

AND THAT'S A LOT OF COOKIES!--The Chaparral Girl Scouts of the Navajo Reservation are proving that Scout cookies are big business. The 1,200-acre site they selected for a campground in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico will cost $123,585. The girls have been working hard to earn money toward the purchase price, including the Scouts' traditional fund-raising method of selling cookies. Now their elders are sufficiently impressed to offer help. A capital fund campaign to raise money for the camp is scheduled for kick-off in the first half of 1967.

INDIAN CLAIMS COMMISSION ACTIONS--An award of $11,394 has been granted to the Iowa Tribe of the Iowa Reservation in Kansas and Nebraska, the Iowa Tribe of the Iowa Reservation in Oklahoma, and the Iowa Nation, in settlement of a general accounting claim.

The Commission also held that the petitioners were entitled to recover the fair market value of 4,798 acres of land excluded from a reservation created for the Iowa Nation under a treaty of September 17, 1836.

In an order of April 4, 1966 the Claims Commission ruled that the Piankeshaw Tribe had title to a tract of land in eastern Illinois that was ceded under the Treaty of May 23, 1807. The case will now proceed for determination of issues, including acreage, and value of the land involved.

The Department of the Interior has amended existing Federal Regulations governing preparation of tribal rolls and enrollment appeals, to implement preparation of rolls for the Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska, a current activity of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The amendments to Title 25, Code of Federal Regulations, Parts 41 and 42, became effective upon publication in the Federal Register June 1, 1966. They establish qualifications for enrollment in the Tlingit and Haida Tribes and set a June 30, 1967 deadline for filing applications.

All persons of Tlingit or Haida Indian blood residing in the United States or Canada on August 19, 1965 are eligible for enrollment if they were legal residents of the Territory of Alaska on or prior to June 19, 1935 or are descendants of such legal residents of Tlingit or Haida Indian blood.

Sponsors may file applications for members of the Armed Services or other services of the United States or Canadian Governments or for family members stationed abroad. They may also file on behalf of minors, mentally incompetent persons, or others in need of assistance, or for persons who died after the date of the Act of August 19, 1965 which authorized the Secretary of the Interior to prepare the Tlingit and Haida tribal rolls.

Any person who has been rejected for enrollment may file an appeal, or have an appeal filed by a sponsor on his behalf. Such appeals must be addressed to the Secretary of the Interior and be filed in writing before the close of business on the 30th day after receipt of a rejection notice. Those who receive rejection notices at addresses outside the Continental United States will have 60 days to file an appeal.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced the award of a $238,895 contract for improving the road that serves Kahneeta Hot Springs, a popular resort on the Warm Springs Reservation in central Oregon.

The contract calls for widening and bituminous resurfacing of approximately 11.5 miles of the existing Agency Simnasho and Hot Springs Deschutes road to serve increased traffic to the tourist mecca. A tribal enterprise of the Warm Springs Indians, Kahneeta resort features luxurious overnight accommodations, an Olympic-size swimming pool and thermal baths. The tribe has plans under way to expand facilities for the increasing numbers of visitors who come each year to vacation among the Indians.

Successful bidder for the road improvement contract was Babler Bros., Inc., of Portland, Oregon. Five bids were received, ranging to a high of $360,776.

Alaska is home to three native peoples. The Eskimos, although best known, share the vast land with their island relatives, the Aleuts, and with a large number of Indians.

The story of these native residents of the great northern peninsula that became a State in 1959 is told in a booklet just published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs--Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts of Alaska.

Here is a sampling of some little known facts revealed in the new publication:

-- The 14,444 Indians, 23,323 Eskimos, and 5,755 Aleuts counted in the most recent census represent roughly one-fifth of the State population;

-- Aleut sea-hunters harvest about BO percent of the fur seal pelts taken each year on the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.

-- Alaska Eskimos do not live in igloos, but sometimes construct snow windbreaks when caught in storms;

-- Native jade and ivory carvings of remarkable beauty are sought by collectors throughout the world.

In the course of a tumultuous and colorful history, Alaska--or Alyeska, as the Aleuts call the region--has survived occupation by Russian fur traders; a Gold Rush; post-war land booms; the advent of Statehood; and a devastating earthquake. These and other historic highlights thread through the booklet just issued.

Amply illustrated, the 16-page publication may be purchased at 15 cents a copy from the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. 20402. A discount of 25 percent is allowed on quantity orders of 100 or more, to be mailed to one address.

This booklet is the third in a current BIA series. Two earlier publications, Indians of North Carolina and Indians of Oklahoma, are for sale at the same address and price.

Robert L. Bennett, Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has announced the appointment of new superintendents for three field Agencies.

Jose A. Zuni, a Pueblo Indian from Isleta, N. Mex., and former superintendent of the Consolidated Ute Agency, Ignacio, Colo., will move to the position of superintendent of the Nevada Agency (mainly Paiute, Shoshone and Washo Indians) at Stewart, Nev. His appointment becomes effective June 26, 1966.

Zuni will fill the vacancy created by the transfer of Dale M. Baldwin to post of Director for the Portland, Oreg., Area last March.

Employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs since September 1949, he has held administrative positions in the Gallup, N. Mex., Area Office and the United Pueblos Agency, Albuquerque, N. Mex.

He holds an A.B. degree in Business Administration from the University of New Mexico and has served as Lieutenant Governor of his home Pueblo of Isleta. From 1942 through 1945 he was with the United States Air Force in the South Pacific.

Theodore C. Krenzke, formerly a specialist in social welfare with the Bureau's area office in Juneau, Alaska, has been named superintendent of the Cherokee Agency in North Carolina. No effective date has been yet determined for his appointment. He succeeds Don Y. Jensen, who recently transferred to the Aberdeen, S. Dak., Area Office to become Assistant Director for Economic Development.

Krenzke, a native of Minnesota, began his career in Indianapolis, Ind., as a probation officer with the Marion County Juvenile Court and a social caseworker with the Lutheran Child Welfare Association. He joined the Bureau in January 1956, as a social worker at the Blackfeet Indian Agency in Montana. In 1958 he accepted a position with the Dakota Boys' Ranch Association at Minot, N. Dak., but later rejoined the Bureau in 1960 to take the Juneau, Alaska, post. His special responsibility in Alaska was an overall child welfare program in the Juneau area.

He received a Master of Arts degree in Social Services from Indiana University in 1954.

Joseph F. Otero, who has been administrative manager for the Mescalero Agency (Apache) in New Mexico, will transfer to the Zuni Agency as superintendent. The effective date of his appointment has not been determined.

Otero, who joined the Bureau in August 1953, as a soil conservation specialist, was employed in field offices on the Navajo and Jicarilla Apache Reservations until January 1960. He later served as land operations officer for the Consolidated Ute Agency, Ignacio, Colo., and in January 1963 transferred to the Fort Peck Agency (Assiniboine and Sioux) at Poplar, Mont., in the same capacity. He has been with the Mescalero Agency since October 1965.

Otero received a B.S. degree from New Mexico State University in 1953. Between 1946-1949 he served with the United States Air Force.

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.

The Chicago firm, one of the Nation's largest electronics manufacturers, will erect a branch plant on the Seminole land to produce electronic connectors, and to employ upwards of 100 Seminoles by early next year. The lease with the Tribe is for 65 years. Plant construction will commence in August. The Bureau of Indian Affairs will contract with Amphenol for on-the-job training of Indian workers.

Robert L. Bennett, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in making announcement today, said:

"Negotiations with Amphenol have been part of our stepped-up nationwide effort to develop business and industry in regions where Indian unemployment is high. This is the first major breakthrough in the battle to bring the Seminole Indians into the circle of economic growth enjoyed by the State of Florida in this decade. The total Indian community--and, indeed, the adjacent non-Indian community as well--will benefit from the locale of this industrial plant."

The Bureau of Indian Affairs was instrumental in bringing the negotiations to completion. The Bureau's economic development division responded some months ago to Amphenol's 50-State canvass for a new site by introducing the firm to the Seminole Tribe's newly formed Board for Economic Development.

Bill Osceola, the Tribal development board's chairman, said; in putting his signature to the contract in behalf of the Tribe:

"This is one 'treaty' we are happy to sign."

A total of 143 acres have been set aside by the Hollywood Reservation Seminoles to use for development and they are planning an industrial park.

Amphenol is one of several electronics firms that have gone into Indian areas for expansion sites. Discussions are currently under way with numerous others, sparked by a conference last month between Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall and representatives of 11 major electronics concerns.