OPA

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today that Paul B. Murphy, food specialist with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is being assigned to emergency duty with the American Red Cross in Austria as director of a program for feeding Hungarian refugees.

The Indian Bureau food expert is scheduled to fly to Salzburg, Austria, on his new assignment Monday, December 3.

Engaged in the food business for many years, Mr. Murphy was chairman of the United States delegation to the International Food Conference in London in 1951, He later served as food consultant to the Civil Defense Administration. In July 1954 he joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs as field representative of the Commissioner. In May 1956 he was assigned to the Bureau's Branch of Education as food service specialist.

In this capacity he developed plans for the use of the “master menu” system of food service, beginning last September, in the Bureau’s day and boarding schools on the Navajo Reservation and other reservations of New Mexico and Colorado.

This system of mass feeding, now a standard operation with the United States Armed Forces and many public and private institutions, insures the maintenance of an appetizing, daily menu of high nutritional content while providing controls for the prevention of waste and spoilage.

All cooking continues to be done at the schools, but much of the preparation of meats and vegetables is concentrated in a central commissary at Gallup, N. Mex., in order to promote uniformity of quality and to increase efficiency of handling,

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced approval of a $58,281 contract between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Oregon State Department of Education for financial aid to school districts with Indian pupils.

The current year will be the last in which Oregon schools will receive aid under the Johnson-O'Malley Act of 1936 for the public school education of Indian children. The State has elected in the future to receive aid for Indian childrei1, as it does other federal aid, under provisions of Public Law 874, as amended, P. L, 874 provides for aid to districts with enrollment from areas of federal activity in recognition of the fact that the districts are unable to tax federal lands.

For the past nine years Indian education in the State of Oregon has been partially supported by Johnson-O'Malley Act funds. To qualify for these funds school districts had to show that Indian students and nontaxable Indian lands within the boundaries of their district constitute a financial burden. Last year the State received $70,500 in Johnson-O'Malley aid.

In Oregon these funds have been used to aid districts in integrating Indian children into the public schools so that all children of Oregon citizens, Indian or non-Indian, have equal educational opportunities. Principal use of the funds last year was in Harney, Jefferson, Klamath, Umatilla and Wasco counties,

As part of the Indian Bureau’s program to step up school enrollment on the Navajo Reservation of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, 21 passenger buses are being purchased from the International Harvester Company, the Department of the Interior announced today.

International Harvester was the low bidder with a price of $83,644.66. The only other bidder, Chrysler Motors Corporation, submitted an offer of $92,883.10.

The buses will be used to transport children from their homes to day schools and trailer schools on the reservation.

The Bureau's special drive to make schooling more widely available to Navajo children started early in 1954 when the total enrollment of Navajo youngsters in schools of all types was approximately 14,000. By last June the total enrollment had been boosted to over 25,000.

A Forestry Service Center to help Indians develop productive capacities of their commercial forest lands has been established at Littleton, Colo., in the Denver metropolitan area, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Louis R. Bruce announced today.

The new office will be directly under the Central Office of the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, and initially will be staffed with six employees. Bruce said the Cen­ter is centrally located to most Indian reservations.

Assigned as Director of the Center is Earle R. Wilcox, until recently stationed at Portland, Ore., with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He will coordinate forest management inventories and plans, evaluate the cost effectiveness of intensive management efforts, and conduct special studies required for the effective protection and administration of Indian-owned forest lands.

"Indian forests now could have an annual sustained-yield pro­duction estimated at more than 1.2 billion board feet if they are managed as intensively as industrial tree farms," Wilcox said. "This is 25 percent more than these lands produced during the last fiscal year."

Commissioner Bruce said the Bureau's move toward more intensive forest management is in keeping with President Nixon's call to increase forest productivity to help meet critical housing needs.

Secretary of the Interior Fred .A. Seaton announced today the Departments’ approval of the November 1 action of the Navajo Tribal Council in appropriating $300,000 of tribal funds for use by the Tribe to induce new industrial plants to locate in the vicinity of the reservation. The added payrolls would provide increased job opportunities for tribal members, it was explained.

The Department has also approved the Tribal Council’s proposal to use $44,000 in previously advanced Federal funds for the same purpose.

Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs W. Barton Greenwood said, “The Navajo Tribe is to be commended for this important step which will benefit its members for an indefinite time in providing payrolls in the vicinity of the reservation. Much progress has been made in the industrial development program and we anticipate a great deal of successful activity during the coming year.”

Technically, the November 1 action of the Tribal Council, which was by a vote of 56-0, was in the form of an amendment of the Tribe’s budget for the fiscal year which ends next June 30. A similar appropriation of $300,000 in tribal funds was included in the budget for the period which ended last June 30. It was used in providing rent free buildings and other economic inducements to industrial concerns.

So far two manufacturing plants have been established in the vicinity of the reservation as a direct result of this program. Navajo Furniture, Inc., a subsidiary of Baby Line Furniture of Los Angeles, opened a plant at Gallup, N. Mex., for the manufacture of juvenile furniture, shutters, and similar items November 15. Lear Navajo, an electronics plant affiliated with Lear, Inc., of Santa Monica, Calif., began operations at Flagstaff, Ariz., November 5. Each of these plants is expected to be employing about 100 Navajo workers after a year of operation.

The industrial activity in the Navajo area, although well advanced, is merely one part of a much broader program being sparked by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to encourage the establishment of manufacturing plants and the creation of new jobs near Indian reservations throughout the country. This work is headed up by Carl W. Beck, an Indian Bureau veteran and assistant to Commissioner Glen L. Emmons.

In addition to the two Navajo plants, three others have been established near Indian reservations in the past year under this Bureau program. Kingman Industries, Inc., a metal fabricating firm, has been operating at Kingman, Ariz., near the Hualapai Reservation since January 1956. Cherokee Leathercraft Co., a subsidiary of Saddlecraft, Inc., Knoxville, Tenn., was opened for the manufacture of leather goods on the Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina last May. Casa Grande Mills, a subsidiary of Parsons and Baker, Phoenixville, Pa., is scheduled to begin operation of a garment factory at Casa Grande, Ariz., near the Pima and Papago Reservations, next March.

The Kingman plant is providing employment for about 50 Indians and the Cherokee for approximately 40. After the Casa Grande factory opens in March, it is expected to provide jobs for 125 Indians almost immediately and for 700 ultimately.

Negotiations are now being actively carried forward by the Indian Bureau with a number of industrial companies looking toward the establishment of additional plants near Indian population centers in Oklahoma, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming as well as Arizona and New Mexico.

Appointment of Fredrick M, Haverland as area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Phoenix, Ariz., succeeding Ralph M. Gelvin, who died last September, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Mr. Haverland, now assistant area director for the Bureau at Muskogee, Okla., will take over his new duties on January 17. In the Phoenix position he will have charge of all Bureau activities in Arizona, Nevada and Utah outside of the Navajo Reservation,

A native of Minneapolis, Minn., Mr. Haverland comes to Phoenix with a background of 18 years' experience in the Indian Bureau. He started in 1936 as a junior road engineer at the Winnebago Agency, Winnebago, Nebr., and five years later was promoted to road engineer at the Truxton Canon. Agency, Valentine, Ariz.

In 1942 he transferred to the Poston project on the Colorado River Reservation in Arizona and in 1944 moved to Chicago as the Bureau's warehouse purchasing officer11 After two years in this position he was named administrative officer in the office at Billings, Mont., and in 1949 he was promoted to assistant area director, He remained in this latter job until last October when he shifted to the same position at Muskogee.

He was educated in the public schools of Minneapolis and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1934 with a degree in civil engineering. He is married and has two children.

Leonard L. Nelson, who has been serving as acting area director at Phoenix since the death of Mr. Gelvin, will resume his former duties as assistant area director of the office.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced an extension in the term of office of John F. Davis as principal chief of the Creek Indian Tribe of Oklahoma until a successor can be duly qualified and appointed. The maximum period of extension is six months.

Mr. Davis, whose home is in Okemah, Oklahoma, has been serving as principal chief under a four-year term which expired January 2. Because of a dispute which has arisen among the tribal members regarding the office of principal chief, his term was extended so that the Bureau of Indian Affairs may explore the matter with the various elements in the tribe and determine a satisfactory method of selecting a successor.

A proposed draft of legislation that would terminate Federal supervision over a two-year period in four Indian communities of southern Minnesota with a combined population of roughly 300 has been submitted to Congress for consideration, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay said today.

Groups covered by the proposal are the Lower Sioux Community in Redwood and Scott counties, the New Upper Sioux Community in Yellow Medicine County, the Prairie Island Community in Goodhue County, and about 15 individuals living on restricted tracts in Yellow Medicine County.

In habits and dress the members of these communities are practically indistinguishable

from their non-Indian neighbors. Less than five percent are full bloods and many are quarter Indian blood or less. In recent years they have been receiving only a limited service from the Indian Bureau although about 3,200 acres of their land are held in trust or restricted status.

The proposed legislation would authorize removal of the trust restrictions over a two-year period and would make the land subject to local taxes. Tribal lands now being occupied and used by individual members under assignment would be transferred to the assignees. In the case of the unassigned tribal lands, the Indians would have the option of (1) organizing a corporation or other legal entity to take over management responsibilities, (2) asking for transfer of the lands to a private trustee for management or liquidation, or (3) requesting the Secretary to sell the lands and distribute the proceeds.

The termination proposed has been fully discussed with all Indian groups affected and was heavily approved by the resident's of the four communities.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today cxmow.1ced the selection of three prominent Oregonians--Thomas B., Watters of Klamath Falls., William L. Phillips of Salem, and Eugene Favell of Lakeview - as management specialists for the Klamath Indian Tribe. They will supervise the program of property appraisal, subdivision and management under the tribal termination law enacted last August.

The specialists were selected after full consultation with the Tribe by Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Glenn LQ Emmons, and a specific endorsement by the tribal executive committee. They will take over - their new duties in the near future as soon as a contract covering their services is negotiated and signed.

Under the termination law the specialists have five major assignments:

(1) to have an appraisal made of all tribal property;

(2) immediately thereafter, to give each adult tribal member an opportunity to choose for himself and his minor children either withdrawal of his proportionate share of the tribal assets or continued participation in the tribal management plan;

(3) to pick out the tracts of tribal land which must be sold to pay off the withdrawing members, arrange for the sale, and distribute the proceeds;

(4) to have such studies and reports made as may be needed from time to time by the Tribe or the Secretary; and

(5) to have a specific program developed for future management of the unsold portion of the tribal property through a trustee, corporation or some other legal entity.,

The law provides that all these steps, together with other phase of the termination program being carried out by the Tribe and the Indian Bureau, must be completed by August 13, 1958. Costs of the work supervised by the management specialists will be borne, under provisions of the act, by the Indian beneficiaries.

Mr. Watters, a native of Cedar County, Nebr., carne to Klamath Falls as a young man and has been in the real estate and insurance business there for almost JO years. He was mayor of the city for four years in the late 19201 s and was manager of the Klamath Valley Savings and Loan Company from 1930 to 1933. In 1935 he joined other Klamath Falls businessmen in purchasing and eventually liquidating the assets of the Western Savings and Loan Company. Before coming to Oregon he attended the University of Nebraska

Mr. Phillips, also a native of Nebraska, came to Oregon in 1912 and settled in Salem nine years later. In 1922 he became associated with the Valley Motor Company and 30 years later was named president and general manager. He has since sold out hi interests in this company and is now connected with the Valley Properties Company. He is a trustee of Willamette University, a director of the [] and Coke Company, and a member of the National Executive Board of the [] of America.

Mr. Favell has been in the land appraisal and timber brokerage business for more than 40 years. He started out in Wisconsin around 1912 and has since had experience in Minnesota, Florida, Canada and finally Oregon. For a number of years past, he has been active in civic affairs at Lakeview.

Appointment of Richard D. Butts as superintendent of the Cherokee Indian Agency, Cherokee, N. C., was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

Mr. Butts, a member of the Indian Bureau’s Washington office program coordinating staff and former superintendent at Indian agencies in Oregon and Minnesota, will take over his new duties March 1. William E. Ensor, Jr., who has been acting superintendent at Cherokee since the transfer of former superintendent Joe Jennings to the Washington office last December, will resume his previous position as administrative officer of the agency.

A native of Harrington, Kansas, and a graduate of Oklahoma A. and M. College in 1933, Mr. Butts first joined the Indian Bureau in 1948 as soil conservationist at Colville Agency, Nespelem, Washington. Three years later he was appointed superintendent at Umatilla Agency, Pendleton, Oregon, and last summer was transferred to the post of superintendent at Red Lake Agency, Red Lake, Minn. Following the merger of the Red Lake and Consolidated Chippewa Agencies in December, he joined the program coordinating staff in Washington.

Before coming with the Bureau Mr. Butts served with the Army for six years and attained the rank of major prior to his discharge in 1948. His earlier background includes six years with the Soil Conservation Service of the Department of Agriculture and two years of school teaching in Oklahoma.