OPA

Promotion of Jose A. Zuni, an Indian career employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to the position of superintendent of the Consolidated Ute Agency, Ignacio, Colorado, was reported today by the Department of the Interior.

Born on the Isleta Pueblo near Albuquerque in 1921, Zuni graduated from the University of New Mexico with a degree in business administration in 1949 and joined the Bureau as a budget analyst in Albuquerque the same year. In 1954 he was promoted to administrative assistant at Albuquerque and two years later was transferred to the Area Office at Gallup in a similar position. In 1958 he returned to Albuquerque as tribal relations officer and a year later was promoted to his most recent position as assistant to the General Superintendent of the United Pueblos Agency. He served in the Air Force during World War II.

At Ignacio, Zuni succeeds James F. Canan, who has been superintendent there since 1956 and is transferring to the office at Gallup as assistant area director.

Award of a $868,653 contract for construction of school facilities to accommodate 188 Indian children not now in school at Dilcon, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation was reported today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract calls for construction of a 7-classroom structure with a multipurpose room, a 128-pupil dormitory, a kitchen and dining room, employees' quarters, a bus garage, and a storage and utility building.

The facilities are being built at a location on the Navajo Reservation where the Bureau of Indian Affairs has been operating a temporary school for the past several years. When completed, they will provide for the present enrollment of 22 children at Dilcon and for 188 others not now in school.

The successful bidder was Lembke Construction Co., Albuquerque, N. Mex. Ten higher bids, ranging from $877,191 to $1,022,831, were received.

Appointment of Lloyd New Kiva, Cherokee Indian artist and owner-manager of an Indian arts and crafts shop at Scottsdale, Ariz., as a member of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

A native of Fairland, Okla., Kiva was named to fill out the unexpired term of Willard W. Beatty, who died September 29 shortly after being elected chairman of the Board. The term expires July 6, 1964.

The new Board member has been in the Indian arts and crafts field for the past 22 years. During this period, he taught arts and crafts at the Phoenix Indian School for four years and served as superintendent of the Indian exhibit at the Arizona State Fair each year from 1939 to 1946.

He has owned and operated his shop at Scottsdale since 1945. After finishing high school, he studied at the Chicago Arts Institute on a Bureau of Indian Affairs scholarship and later attended the University of Chicago, the University of New Mexico, and Oklahoma A &M College.

Dr. Frederick J. Dockstader, also of Scottsdale and a member of the Board since September 20, 1955, was elected Chairman succeeding Dr. Beatty on October 5.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today that Paul Jones, Tribal Chairman of the Navajo Indians, has agreed to enter into negotiation looking toward the exchange of nearly 300,000 acres of tribal land surrounding Rainbow Bridge National Monument in Utah for public domain lands.

Secretary Udall said: “The acreage lying south and west of Navajo Mountain comprises one of the magnificent scenic areas outside the National Park System." Rainbow Bridge has long been the focal point of interest in this fantastically eroded red sandstone country.

Secretary Udall said that the wilderness quality of the tribal area has over the years been protected by the extremely rugged topography which makes it inaccessible to all but the hardiest visitor. The new park, Secretary Udall pointed out, could become one of the finest wilderness parks in the national system. Aside from a 14-mile horse trail to the Bridge, little has changed since 1910 in this area, Secretary Udall said.

Rainbow Bridge National Monument, established on May 30, 1910, at present comprises 160 acres centering on the largest of the world's known natural bridges--a symmetrical arch of salmon pink sandstone, curving in the form of a rainbow 309 feet above the bottom of the gorge.

Appointment of Robert L. Bennett, a veteran of nearly 25 years' service with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as Area Director for the Bureau at Juneau, Alaska, was reported today by the Department of the Interior.

An Oneida Indian and native of Wisconsin, Bennett has been serving as Assistant Area Director at the Bureau's area office at Aberdeen, South Dakota, since 1958. At Juneau he succeeds James E. Hawkins who has been Area Director there for the past five years and who will be given another assignment in the Bureau.

Bennett first came with the Bureau in 1933 and has served at the Unitah and Ouray, Navajo, and Consolidated Ute Agencies, in the Washington office, and at Aberdeen.

Mr. Bennett is a 1931 graduate of Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas, and holds a law degree from Southeastern University, Washington, D. C. He was inducted into the Marine Corps in 1945 and later served three years with the Veterans' Administration.

The Alaska native population served by the Bureau of Indian Affairs comprises Eskimos, Aleuts, and Indians, who have long standing and unresolved problems of land ownership and use, health, education, and economic opportunity.

All title source documents and records pertaining to trust or restricted lands on 21 Indian reservations have now been transferred from Washington, D. C. , to area offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Aberdeen, S. Dak.; Billings, Mont. j Gallup, N. Mex.; and Portland, Oreg., the Department of the Interior announced today.

The transfer, Commissioner Philleo Nash emphasized, has involved only the land records formerly maintained in Washington and not those kept at the Bureau's agency offices.

Transferred to the Aberdeen Area Office were the records for the Omaha, Ponca, Santee and Winnebago Reservations in Nebraska; the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Reservations in South Dakota; and the Sisseton Reservation in North and South Dakota.

Records which went to the Billings Office were for the Blackfeet, Fort Belknap, Fort Peck and Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana and the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.

The Gallup Area Office received records for the Alamo, Canoncito and Ramah Navajo communities and the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico and for the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

The transfer to Portland involved records for the Colville, Port Madison and Tulalip Reservations in Washington.

The transfers so far accomplished, Commissioner Nash explained, represent only the first step in a process which will eventually involve all Indian land records now maintained in Washington

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall reported. today that an agreement has been reached between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Harry Winston, Inc." of New York City, for the establishment early next year of a diamond processing plant at Chandler, Arizona, which will provide new job opportunities for the State's Indian population.

The Winston corporation, one of the world's leading diamond mining and processing firms and donor of the internationally famous Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution, will operate the plant in a building to be constructed by the Chandler Development Corporation. The Bureau of Indian Affairs will provide funds for on-the-job training of Indian workers.

Plans call for a work force of at least 200. Indians are expected to comprise the major part of the production force. Those from the nearby Gila River and Salt River Reservations should especially benefit.

At first the operation at Chandler will be confined to intermediate processing and polishing of precious stones. As the workers gain proficiency, however, it is expected that the Chandler plant will take on the more difficult operations of final processing of precious stones and the processing of commercial diamonds.

The plant is to begin training a small group of workers and add a similar group each week until the work force is built up. The plant is expected to begin operations about April 1, 1962. A public hearing on zoning of the tract where the plant will be located is scheduled to be held in Chandler on December 11.

Establishment of the plant at Chandler, Secretary Udall said, is the result of negotiations carried on by the industrial development staff of the Bureau of Indian Affairs with the Winston firm over an extended period. These negotiations were conducted under the Bureau's program to encourage the establishment of industries on or near reservations as a means of widening job opportunities for Indians.

Award of a $1,313,550 contract for the construction of complete new school facilities to accommodate 244 additional Indian pupils on the Navajo Reservation at Shonto, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The new facilities will b, built at a site approximately 3/4 of a mile from an existing Indian Bureau school.

The contract calls for the construction of a 9-classroom school and multipurpose room, a 256-pupil dormitory, a 300-pupil kitchen-dining room, personnel quarters, two 4-stall garages, a storage and utility building, and complete new utility systems. This school, when complete, will provide facilities for 300 pupils, which is an increase of 244 over the enrollment of the present school. The successful bidder was Lembke Construction Co., Inc. of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Two higher bids, ranging from $1,376,000 to $1,574,000 were received

The Navajo Indian Tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior are working closely together to meet all emergency needs resulting from the recent heavy snows and extremely cold weather on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash reported today.

"One of the most important jobs,” Commissioner Nash said, "has been to keep the roads open. For the past several days the Bureau has had its road maintenance crews in the Navajo area working on a round-the-clock schedule. Our latest reports indicate that all main roads on the reservation have been kept open up to the present moment.

“To meet the needs of Navajo families who live away from the main roads, the Tribe has arranged, if it proves necessary, to drop from planes furnished by the National Guard organizations of Arizona and New Mexico about 300 packages of food and 700 bales of hay at some of the more isolated spots on the reservation. While weather conditions have temporarily delayed these emergency flights, they are expected to begin momentarily. Thirty thousand dollars of tribal funds has been appropriated for this undertaking. In addition, there is hay in storage at warehouses scattered across the vast reservation area embracing 25,000 square miles. Stocks of clothing and medical supplies already on hand throughout the reservation are apparently sufficient to meet any foreseeable emergencies."

The situation today, Mr. Nash added, contrasts sharply with that in 1948 when severe blizzards and Widespread suffering on the Navajo Reservation attracted nationwide attention.

"Although the recent snows and subzero temperatures have been perhaps even more severe in some spots than those of 13 years ago, we are now far better equipped to meet the human needs. The network of roads crossing the reservation is much better and more extensive. The Tribe has far more ample funds of its own for coping with such emergencies and a much larger and more efficient organization for the purpose. And all of us, of course, have learned a great deal from the 1948 experience.

"Snow began falling in the Navajo area on Friday, December 8, and has accumulated about six inches everywhere and as much as 30 inches in the higher elevations. High winds and temperatures running as low as 24 degrees below zero have contributed to the emergency conditions.

“I wish to congratulate the officers of the Navajo Tribe, the State governments concerned and the employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs who have worked and planned with determination and foresight to meet every human and livestock need on the reservation during this snow emergency."

Award of a $1,085,400 contract for the construction of new school facilities at Nenahnezad School on the Navajo Indian Reservation near Fruitland, New Mexico, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Facilities to be constructed include two 160-pupil dormitories, a kitchen-dining building, a multipurpose building, a storage and utility building, employees' quarters, and a 9-stall garage. In addition, the existing school building will be remodeled, the streets and parking areas paved, and all utility systems will be replaced or expanded.

These facilities, when complete, will replace some substandard facilities and provide for the enrollment of 170 children not now in school.

The successful bidder was Hesselden Construction Co., of Albuquerque, N. Mex. Five higher bids, ranging from $1,117,700 to $1,229,500 were received.