OPA

The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs today announced the award of a $251,472 contract to a San Diego, Calif., company for installation of two 750-kilowatt gas turbine generator sets at the Bureau's Point Barrow, Alaska, power generating station.

The generators will double the output capability of the present equipment which serves the needs of the village of Barrow and the Bureau installation, including elementary and high school facilities for about 630 native children. The plant also will supply power for a new Public Health Service hospital.

Contractor for installation of the generators is the Solar Division of International Harvester of San Diego, Calif.

Barrow, the northernmost village in the United States, is approximately 325 miles above the Arctic Circle. The 1960 Census listed the population as 1,314. Since then, it reportedly has become one-of the fastest growing native Alaskan communities in the State. Native families, drawn by the possibility of employment and the convenience of village living, are moving to Barrow from scattered areas along the Arctic Ocean.

A $700,000 contract to provide on-the-job training for 1,481 Navajo Indians has been signed with the Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp., the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today. The training will take place at Fairchild's Semiconductor plant at Shiprock, N. Mex.

The largest of several electronics plants now located in Indian areas, Fairchild currently employs 366 Navajos in the operation at Shiprock which commenced 14 months ago.

Negotiations are now in process between the company and the Navajo tribe for construction of a $1.5 million permanent facility in the same location. Officials of the corporation have expressed considerable satisfaction with the work of their Navajo employees.

"Fairchild's experience in training Navajo employees clearly indicates that they quickly learn the skills of transistor assembly and have a high productivity level," the firm's publication, LEADWIRE, reported.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs was instrumental in finding the Navajo location for the California-based international firm, which had been seeking a new location for expansion.

Recruiting of more Navajo workers is under way, following the signing of the on-the-job contract. In addition to financing training, the Bureau will provide transportation to the job for Indian applicants hired by Fairchild.

A unique collection representing the traditional and contemporary aspects of American Indian art is currently drawing capacity-plus crowds at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland and is slated to open September 26 for a two-weeks showing in Berlin, Germany.

In addition to examples of the traditional Indian forms of past cultural achievements, out of which the experimental developments are growing, the show includes scheduled readings of ancient Indian legends, modern poetry and prose. Fred Stevens, Navajo sand painter, and his wife, Bertha, are with the exhibition, demonstrating sandpainting and weaving.

The exhibit, sponsored by the Department of the Interior, the Department of State, the United States Information Agency, and the Center for Arts of Indian America, was designed and installed by James McGrath, assistant director of arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Enthusiastic commentary in the Edinburgh press has been underlined by the public in the form of what McGrath termed "turn-away crowds" for the limited audience poetry and prose readings and "tremendous crowds" in the open galleries.

The contemporary aspects of American Indian Arts are proving particularly exciting to Scottish audiences, according to McGrath. Among these are the weaving experiments by the Skokomish involving cedar bark, shell and horse hair; the Sioux and Crow painting experiments evolving out of the three-dimensional shield cultural pattern; the Eskimo jewelry built around a working knowledge of jade, ivory, bone and shell; the new Apache sculptural forms emerging from experiments in such media as marble and cast stone.

These new forms are being received in Scotland as important new developments in the world of art--new, deep, natural-rooted directions extending from the ancient native sources of the Americas.

All the contemporary pieces in this exhibition have been conceived by artists who, according to one Edinburgh reviewer, "seem to have discovered their Indian sources reflecting and casting shadows on the new worlds of arts elsewhere. The Indian artists in this exhibition," the review continues, "have a right to stand in dignity alongside any working artist today, creating anywhere."

The exhibit, according to McGrath, does not have the intent of showing all, the best, or the very esoteric of Indian artistic situations. It has as its objective the showing "of some of the mystery, some of the soul and much of the love of the American Indian for his communications between the spirit of man and the spirit of the cosmos."

The award of a $2,759,058 construction contract fora large school complex in the New Mexico section of the Navajo Reservation was announced by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

In the Navajo language, the new facility will be known as Dzilth-Na-o-dith-hle School. The name roughly translates as "Turning Mountain," a reference to an unusual nearby hill which seems to revolve, always presenting the same appearance to a traveler passing through the reservation.

To be located near Blanco Trading Post, in Rio Arriba County, the school will serve more than 500 Indian children at the elementary level in the Kimbeto-Huerfano area. A Bureau-operated trailer school at Kimbeto will be closed, but a dormitory at Huerfano will remain open for Indian children attending public school in Bloomfield, N. Mex.

The contract calls for construction of two school buildings with a total of 17 classrooms; two 128-pupil dormitories; a kitchen-dining building to serve 260; a combined instructional materials center and administration building; storage, maintenance and garage facilities; and quarters for employees.

A school enrollment of approximately 255 boarding and 255 day pupils is expected. Boarding students will be housed according to grade levels.

The new school will relieve the present overcrowded and inadequate school facilities now serving area Indian children.

Successful bidder was Lembke Construction Co., Inc., of Albuquerque, N. Mex. Four bids were received, ranging to a high of $3,126,541.

Commissioner Robert L. Bennett of the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today plans for a series of regional meetings with Indian tribal leaders to discuss proposals for legislation and other matters of general interest to the Indian people.

Commissioner Bennett said the nine meetings would "help us to prepare and present to the Congress proposals that represent the best of Indian thinking on how to attack Indian problems.

"We need to take advantage of the favorable climate in Indian affairs created by the President, the Secretary of the Interior and the Congress, which is reflected in the news media, to present a forward-looking program to the Congress," Bennett said.

The Commissioner said he would attend all of the nine meetings. He has asked the Indian delegations to come to the meetings prepared to discuss: "(1) the present conditions of your people; (2) the major problems as you see them; (3) your ideas and recommendations about meeting these problems through your own and other resources."

The date, place and area involved in each meeting are as follows:

Timber harvest and sales on Indian reservations set records in the fiscal year which ended June 30, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

Annual receipts from stumpage sales totaled $14.3 million, nearly $2 million over the previous fiscal year. The volume harvested was approximately 848 million board-feet, an increase of 100 million board-feet over fiscal 1965, the Bureau said.

An additional 100 million board-feet was cut by Indians under free permits for fuel and home and farm use.

The Bureau estimated that the timber cut created 6,000 year-long jobs in the woods and in sawmills, plywood plants and other wood industries located on or near Indian reservations. Increasing numbers of these jobs are being filled by Indians, the Bureau said.

Indian tribally-owned sawmills are located on the Fort Apache, Ariz., Navajo and Jicarilla, N. Mex., and Blackfeet, Mont., Reservations. The Indian owned Red Lake Mill in Minnesota, which burned in December, after 40 years of operation, is being rebuilt with Bureau assistance and should be completed this fall.

In the last five years, the volume of timber cut has increased 375 million board-feet and stumpage receipts have increased by $6.2 million, the Bureau's report stated. This year's increase included most Indian forested areas, except in California, where the cut has remained about the same for several years.

All Indian forests are managed in, accordance with sustained-yield principles in order to maintain the productive capacity of the lands and to assure an even flow of the harvests.

Indian forest resources contribute directly to economic stability and reservation improvement by providing income from stumpage receipts, the advantage of increased employment opportunities and, on an increasing number of reservations, 1e profits and benefits of the processing industries, the Bureau said.

Paul W. Hand, Special Assistant at Palm Springs, Calif., to the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Director for the Sacramento Area, has been appointed superintendent of the BIA agency at Chinle, Ariz., on the Navajo Indian Reservation. He fills the position vacated by Paul A. Krause, who transferred to the superintendency of the Bureau's Bemidji, Minn., agency last July. The new assignment became effective September 11, 1966.

Hand, a native of Spokane, Wash., has served the Bureau of Indian Affairs at various posts since 1952. His assignments include the Washington, D. C., headquarters office; the Colorado River and Navajo Reservations in Arizona; and since July 1963, the office at Palm Springs. He holds a degree in engineering from the State College of Washington, at Pullman, and the degree of doctor of laws from Gonzaga University, Spokane, Wash.

In a second recent personnel action Raymond J. de Kay, coordinator for OEO Programs for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Minneapolis, Minn., area since 1964, was named Superintendent of the Consolidated Ute Indian Agency at Ignacio, Colo., effective August 28, 1966. He succeeds Jose A. Zuni, who transferred last June to become superintendent of the Nevada Agency, Carson City, Nev.

de Kay, a native of Greenwich, Connecticut, has since 1958 held various Bureau positions--at the Bethel Agency, Bethel, Alaska, and at the Juneau Area Office, Alaska, prior to his assignment in Minneapolis, Minn. He holds a master's degree in Social Sciences from St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri.

Federal supervision over the Indians of Blue Lake Rancheria in Humboldt County, Calif., has been terminated with their consent, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today. Notice is being published in the Federal Register.

Blue Lake is the 30th rancheria in California to be removed from Federal trust supervision, in accordance with legislation enacted in 1958 and amended two years ago. More than 100 small Indian rancherias are affected by the law.

Consisting of approximately 26 acres, Blue Lake Rancheria has been occupied by 26 Indians. Termination precludes their receiving further services from the United States Government by virtue of their status as Indians.

The Rancheria Act provides that a plan for disposition of assets be completed before termination. The Blue Lake plan provided for completion of road construction by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and conveyance of the road to Humboldt County; a survey of the land, recorded in Humboldt County; distribution among the Blue Lake group of funds held in trust; and conveyance to the distributees of unrestricted title to the land.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has prepared a 13-booklet series suitable for use by classroom teachers, youth groups and others interested in the story of the American Indian.

The illustrated publications describe the culture and eventful history of tribes whose past is linked with various States or regions of the country. The reader is brought up to date with facts about Indian life today and the Federal programs that serve reservation dwellers.

Ten booklets now available deal with the Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts of Alaska; the Indians of Arizona; California; the Dakotas; the Gulf Coast States; Montana and Wyoming; New Mexico; North Carolina; the Northwest; and Oklahoma.

Three remaining booklets, soon to come off the press, will discuss Indian tribes of the Central Plains; the Great Lakes; and the Lower Plateau areas of the United States.

Publications 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, if mailed to one address.

Forrest J. Gerard, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana, has been appointed Legislative Liaison Officer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Robert L. Bennett, BIA Commissioner, announced today.

Gerard had been chief of the Tribal Affairs Division of the Public Health Service's Indian Health Division. In his new position he will be an advisor to the Commissioner and Bureau officials on legislative matters and will analyze pending legislation which would affect Indians and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

A graduate of Montana State University, Gerard is an Air Force veteran and served with the Montana and Wyoming Tuberculosis and Health Associations before joining the Public Health Service in 1957.

Gerard received the Indian Achievement Award of 1966 from the Indian Council Fire, a Chicago based Indian interest organization, for his work in improving Indian health.

Last year he won a Fellowship in Congressional Operations sponsored by the American Political Science Association and the Civil Service Commission. Gerard, 41, lives with his wife and five children in Bowie, Md.

Assisting Gerard will be Larry M. Wheeler, recently appointed to the post of Deputy Legislative Liaison Officer. Wheeler had been the Executive Clerk of the United States Senate.

A Marine Corps veteran, Wheeler is a native of Georgia and a graduate of the University of Georgia. He came to Washington in 1957 as an administrative clerk for Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia.

Wheeler, 33, lives with his wife and daughter in Alexandria, Va.