OPA

WASHINGTON – Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Aurene M. Martin today announced that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has been awarded a Reading First grant by the U.S. Department of Education totaling $27 million over the next six years. Office of Indian Education Programs Director Edward Parisian officially received the award today from Education Department officials at the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians 50th annual conference in Pendleton, Oregon.

“I am very pleased that the BIA has been awarded a Reading First grant,” Martin said. “This funding will allow BIA schools to help students establish a foundation of reading for a lifetime of learning.”

The Reading First program was established under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 as a new, high quality evidence-based program to enable all students to become successful early readers. Under the program’s guidelines, states must compete to receive a six-year grant that will, in turn, fund competitively awarded sub grants to local school districts. The BIA applied as a state education agency. BIA-funded schools may submit applications via a competitive grant process to OIEP’s Center for School Improvement in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

For the next six years, the BIA will receive $4.5 million per year to fund 16 to 20 BIA-funded schools. Eligible schools will receive funding for three years with another round of schools applying through the same competitive process for another three years. The size of each grant will be approximately $180,000 per year. The grant is to raise reading achievement in grades K3 through professional development of staff using scientifically researched-based reading programs

“Improving our students’ reading ability is one of our highest priorities,” Parisian said. “This Reading First grant will enable us to help BIA schools raise their students’ reading levels. I commend our Center for School Improvement staff for their hard work in producing a winning application.”

There are 185 BIA-funded elementary and secondary day and boarding schools serving approximately 48,000 Indian students living on or near 63 reservations in 23 states. In School Year 2001-2002, the BIA directly operated one-third of its schools with the remaining two-thirds tribally-operated under BIA contracts or grants. The BIA also directly operates two postsecondary institutions of higher learning and provides funding to 25 tribally-controlled colleges and universities. In addition, the BIA offers financial assistance grants to Indian undergraduate and graduate students through, respectively, tribal scholarship programs and the American Indian Graduate Center (AIGC) in Albuquerque, N.M.

The Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs has responsibility for fulfilling the Department’s trust responsibilities to individual and tribal trust beneficiaries, as well as promoting the self-determination and economic well-being of the nation’s 562 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. The Assistant Secretary also oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is responsible for providing education and social services to approximately 1.4 million individual American Indians and Alaska Natives from the federally recognized tribes.

-DOI-

WASHINGTON – As part of President Obama’s commitment to work with tribal leaders to promote tribal self-determination and economic development, the Department of the Interior is seeking guidance from Native American communities on a proposal to streamline and modernize regulations that govern business operations on tribal homelands.

During a visit to the Swinomish Tribe, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Michael L. Connor today announced the publication of an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Advanced Notice) to comprehensively update the regulations governing trade occurring within Indian Country.

“Modernizing the Indian Trader Regulations will help to promote self-determination and economic development for Tribes across the country,” said Deputy Secretary Connor. “The regulations governing Indian Traders are long outdated and do not reflect or respect current business practices occurring in Indian Country.”

The proposed revisions seek to modernize the implementation of the Indian Trader statutes to meet the needs of 21st century tribal economies. In accordance with the United States’ Nation-to-Nation relationship with sovereign Tribes, Interior will hold formal tribal consultations with tribal representatives, seeking early input and guidance.

“Our Nation-to-Nation relationship, our treaty and trust responsibilities and our North star of Tribal Self-Determination and Self-Governance guide our obligation to consult early and often with Tribes as we consider policies that have tribal implications,” Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Lawrence Roberts said. “We encourage Tribes to participate in this rulemaking process to ensure that the path forward is the result of tribal input.”

The last revision to the regulations was more than 30 years ago. The Department has received several proposals and inquiries from Tribes and Tribal organizations about updating Part 140 to further tribal self-determination and self-governance. In response to these requests, the Department issued the Advanced Notice to seek guidance from Tribes on how to ensure that businesses in Indian Country are appropriately regulated, how that regulation should be implemented, and the role of Tribes in implementing the statute.

The Department recognizes that Tribes fully regulate businesses operating within their boundaries. In this spirit, the Department is also interested in learning how tribes currently regulate trade occurring within Indian Country, as any revisions the Department proposes would support such tribal regulation and self-determination. Further, the Department seeks information on how revisions to this regulation would promote strong tribal economies.

A full list of the questions presented is located in the Advanced Notice, as well as the list of the dates of the upcoming tribal consultations. Interior officials are particularly interested in hearing from federally recognized tribes and welcome comments and information from states, their agencies and the public. The period to submit written comments is open until April 10, 2017.

###

Mr. Toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen:

It gives me great pleasure to come back to Oregon as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. This is the State where I began professional interest in the American Indian almost 30 years ago. I was a graduate student in anthropology at that time and did field work on the Klamath Reservation in the summer of 1934 and through the fall, winter and spring of 1935 and 1936. The learning process is still going on--seven days a week, 365 days a year.

I am honored to be selected by the City Club of Portland as your guest speaker today. I welcome the opportunity of sharing with you some of the things I have learned about Indian affairs over the past three decades and of reporting to you, briefly, on the current status of our programs in the Bureau of Indian affairs.

Two years ago this month an important milestone was reached in the history of the Bureau. On July 10, 1961 a task force of four members, including myself, completed an intensive three-month study of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We submitted a report of our findings and recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Stewart L. Udall. The report was subsequent approved, in the main, by Secretary Udall, and it became the charter of our present-day policies and programs. The keynote recommendation was a call for much greater emphasis on Indian development--both the development of Indians as people and the economic development of Indian-owned resources on the reservations.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is one of the oldest agencies in our Federal Government. Our origins go back to the colonial period and we have been in continuous existence for 139 years. Over this period of nearly 14 decades Congress has from time to time redefined and expanded the work of the Bureau until today our organization bears little resemblance to the pure diplomatic and trade-regulating agency that was original established in 1824.

At present about 380,000 people come within the scope of our programs. This includes not only the Indians living on reservations throughout the country (like Warm Springs and Umatilla here in Oregon) but also all the people in the native villages of Alaska--Indian, Eskimo and Aleut--and large numbers of Indians living on trust or restricted land in former reservation areas of Oklahoma.

The responsibilities that we have with respect to these people are essentially twofold. On the one hand, we provide them with a variety of services such as education, welfare aid, police protection and road construction and maintenance in locations where these services are not available from the usual state and local agencies serving non-Indian citizens. Secondly, we serve as trustees for about 50 million acres of land that belongs to the Indian people. This includes most of the land making up the reservations as well as a number of scattered tracts known as public domain allotments. Nearly four-fifths of the total acreage-- about 39 million acres altogether--consists of tribal land which is the property of a whole tribal group. The balance is made up of comparatively small tracts which were allotted by the Government many years ago to individual tribal members& Because of the processes of inheritance, the ownership of many of these allotments has become exceedingly complex and this "heirship problem", as we call it, is one of our most troublesome administrative responsibilities.

As trustees, we are responsible not only for protecting the Indian owners of this land, tribal or individual, from improvident disposition or leasing of the property. We also assist them to achieve the highest possible income from the lands and related resources that is consistent with sound conservation principles. And this gets us into a second group of programs, mainly technical in nature, in such fields as forestry, range management, irrigation, credit, and leasing for mineral development or for surface uses such as agriculture, grazing, or commercial and industrial development.

So much for the older program operations of the Bureau--those that go back, or 40 years or even back to our beginnings. In the last dozen years or so, the Bureau has launched a number of new programs aimed at quickening the pace of economic advancement for Indian people and helping them to higher standards of living.

One of these, for example, is a program of employment assistance. This involves vocational training and the relocation of wage-earners and their dependents to urban-industrial areas for direct employment.

Another is our industrial development operation. By this program we encourage the establishment of manufacturing plants of the light-industry type on or near the reservations so as to provide more steady jobs for Indian workers.

Still another example is our work in the field of housing development. Those of you who have visited Indian country know that their housing is truly shocking. Our newest program is an effort to improve the situation by adapting the established programs of the Federal housing agencies to reservation needs.

This will, I hope, give you some idea of what we are doing in the Bureau. It is, as you can see, a highly complex and multifaceted operation.

Three main goals were recommended by the Task Force. They now provide the orientation of all our program activities. They are (1) maximum Indian economic self-sufficiency, (2) full participation of Indians in American life, and (3) equal citizenship privileges and responsibilities for Indians.

These are not novel goals. They are merely a statement with respect to Indians of what the rest of us seek for ourselves. The question is not whether they are desirable goals. I have yet to hear anyone disagree with them. The question is, "What are the best means by which these ends may be reached?"

There are two philosophies. One holds that the reservation system, with attendant trusteeship and the existence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs with its programs of property management and human betterment hold back individual Indians from reaching these desirable goals.

The other philosophy holds that the protection of property and the provision of special services is all that stands between Indian individuals and ultimate poverty, destitution, and dependency.

The truth, as usual, lies between the two extremes. Our present programs are designed to take into account the realities of Indian life as it is actually lived on and near the reservations, not as the ideologists of either extreme visualize it. The facts are that Indian people themselves place a high value on the Indian trusteeship. In the main they do not wish it to come to an end but regard it as a necessary and desirable relationship which is due them in return for lands ended and promises made long ago. Individually they chafe under its restrictions collectively they resist efforts to end it.

Alongside this is the fact that most reservations are places of little opportunity. Life on a reservation can be grim and harsh. Although many prosperous and happy persons live on reservations and prefer it, they are the exception. Reservation life, for the bulk of Indian people, has meant an educational level half that of the national average; an income one-fourth to one-third the national average; an unemployment rate six or seven times the national average; and age at death two-thirds the national average.

It has long been the objective of various Commissioners of Indian Affairs to bring these deplorable figures of human welfare closer to the American standard. As long as reservations exist, the trusteeship continues, and people live on reservations, it is the duty of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to devise programs and operate them so that these conditions of life will improve.

It was the opinion of the Task Force that the goals we described are attainable, not a dream. Life on the reservations can be much better; while those who desire to leave the reservations and seek opportunity nearby or in metropolitan centers should be prepared and helped to succeed. The programs outlined by the task Force now being placed in effect by the Bureau of Indian Affairs are programs of education and individual betterment both on and off the reservations; and of economic and community development on the reservations, looking toward a better life for all.

How much progress have we made in the two years since the Task Force Report was submitted? What remains to be done?

Let us look first at education, which is fundamental in any long-range program of human betterment. In the early part of 1961, even before the Task Force was appointed, President Kennedy urged the Congress to provide funds for an accelerated program of Indian school construction. The Indian school plant stretches from the Everglades of Florida to the Arctic Coast of Alaska. It includes nearly 300 separate installations, some old, some new, some large, some small. The older buildings are badly deteriorated and in urgent need of rehabilitation or replacement. Furthermore, there have never been enough classroom seats, especially on the Navajo Reservation of the Southwest, and in Alaska, to accommodate the school-age population. The goal of President Kennedy's program in early 1961 was to provide facilities for all Indian children and to relieve overcrowding and hazardous conditions in obsolete boarding and day schools without delay.

Over the past two years Congress has responded generously. Enough funds have been provided to rehabilitate and modernize some of our worst "problem” structures. But the main effort has been to expand the capacity of the entire system by about 7,000 classroom seats and associated dormitory beds. Some of the projects made possible by these appropriations have now been completed. Many more are under construction. The rest are in the design stage. In the meantime, of course, our school-age Indian population has been relentlessly increasing year by year along with the school-age population all over the country.

Aside from the construction aspect, we have made many other improvements in our education program over the past 24 months. Two-thirds of the Indian children go to public schools, but one-third of them live in isolated areas and are not served by public schools. Eighty percent of these children come from homes where English is not the household language. So we are giving much more attention to improving the techniques of English language instruction which I regard as crucially important.

In our boarding schools, where the children are our responsibility 24 hours a day and seven days a week throughout the academic year, we have substantially enlarged our staff of attendants and counsellors. We have upgraded the requirements for many of these positions, and have increased their in-service training.

We have greatly expanded the scope of our summer programs which involve student employment, outdoor sports, acceleration of academic work, and pre-school classes for children, and organized trips to national or regional points of interest for the older students. In the summer of 1960 about 2,000 Indian students took part in these programs; last summer the number was nearly 13,000; and this year it will go still higher.

During this period we have also established a new school, the Institute of American Indian Arts, on the grounds of our old boarding school at Santa Fe, New Mexico. Our purpose here is to provide a first class residential high school plus two years of post-high school technical training. The students selected are Indian young people with special aptitudes in painting, sculpture, design, music, creative writing, ceramics, textiles and many other fine and applied arts. The school opened last fall on a partial basis with an enrollment of about 140 students from 74 tribes. This fall we are planning for a student body of approximately 250 in the arts courses. We will eventually reach 500.

Meanwhile we have expanded our adult education program on the reservations for the benefit of those adult Indians who went through childhood without sufficient schooling. We are now conducting adult education programs at 127 locations in Alaska and on Indian reservations here below. Two years ago the number was 97. Some of these are evening or day time classes to make up for lost schooling. Others are programs of community development.

In the field of higher education advances have also been made. Last year nearly 2,900 Indian young men and women were attending classes in colleges and diversities, 724 of them with help from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Each year since the Task Force Report we have doubled the Federal money available for higher education grants and loans.

One program of the Bureau that especially impressed us on the Task Force during the course of our study was that of adult vocational training. This activity was started in 1958; by the spring of 1961 it had shown itself to be a highly successful operation. It was equipping Indians, generally in the age bracket from 18 to 35, with marketable skills, boosting their earning power, and was providing them with greater job security than they had formerly known as unskilled workers. The rate of employment for those who finished training compared very favorably with that of the 01 training program of the veterans Administration. The Indians themselves were highly enthusiastic about these opportunities.

In the original legislation authorizing this program the amount of annual appropriation was limited to $3,500,000. In 1962 Congress more than doubled this authorization, raising it to $7,500,000. As a result of the steady increase in the money available, we now have twice as many Indians enrolled in vocational schools as we had two years ago; more than 1,300 at the end of May. Over the whole five-year period since 1958 more than 8,900 Indians have received training under the auspices of this program--about 6,800 in vocational schools and the rest through on-the-job training in manufacturing plants on or near the reservations. Together with their dependents about 21,000 individual persons have enjoyed direct and indirect benefits from this program.

Within the past several weeks we have asked Congress for a further increase in the authorized amount of annual appropriations for this program--stepping it up from $7,500,000 to $12,000,000. If this is approved, it will enable us eventually to enroll over 3,900 Indian trainees in vocational schools during the course of a single year--not all at the same time, of course--and to provide on the-job training for an additional 1,500.

So you can see that we have made good strides since 1961 in the area of human development. Now, how about the development of the physical resources?

The program to encourage the establishment of industries with their payrolls on or near the reservations has been strengthened and enlarged. Since early 1961 arrangements have been completed for bringing 19 new plants into the Indian population areas and the great majority of them are now in operation. These, together with plants established earlier, are now providing steady employment for over 1,000 Indian workers who comprise about 75 percent of the total payroll. In some places like the Oglala Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, the additional jobs have already produced tangible benefits in the form of smaller welfare caseloads, better school attendance, and improved housing.

We have also been greatly helped by an allotment of funds under the national Accelerated Public Works Program for a variety of urgently needed projects on the Indian reservations. At the peak in April, nearly 5,700 Indians were at work on these APW projects on 88 reservations in 18 States. This represents about one out of every eight of the unemployed Indian labor force. They are working to improve reservation roads, to upgrade stands of Indian timber, to build community centers, and to protect soil resources against the ravages of erosion. All of it was work that needed to be performed eventually; the allotment of these funds has permitted us to schedule it earlier and to find productive work for several thousand Indians. Nothing can equal the moral boost of a real job with a regular pay check.

I mentioned our credit program earlier and I want to return to it now. To provide the financial lifeblood for significant economic development on the reservation, large amounts of credit are needed. Under our program we give first emphasis to helping tribal organizations and individual Indians obtain financing from banks and other sources that serve citizens generally; in 1962 Indians received about $88 million of financing from these sources. We also help the tribes to organize and administer credit programs of their own for the benefit of their members and the tribes are now using nearly $26 million of their funds for this purpose. Supplementing both of these resources is the revolving credit fund of the Bureau. At the time of the Task Force study the total amount which Congress had appropriated for this fund over a 25-year period was a little under $14 million. In our report we pointed out the need for more ample funds. The Department of the Interior followed this up with a request to the Congress which has since appropriated an additional $10 million. In the last two years, loans from the fund have averaged over $5 million a year in contrast with an annual average prior to 1961 of about $1 1/2 million. These more recent loans have been made for a wide range of enterprises. They include such enterprises as a tribal sawmill on the Fort Apache Reservation in Arizona (now nearing completion), an arts and crafts cooperative in Alaska, and a plant manufacturing beauty products on the Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina. All of them are enterprises which will bring tangible benefits to Indians in the form of increased tribal income or more jobs for tribal members or both, and invaluable work experience.

One item I want to be sure to include in this two-year progress report is Indian housing. Although the programs of the Federal Government in the field of housing were initiated during the decade of the 1930's, their benefits were withheld from Indian reservations for nearly three decades, chiefly because of complications arising from the trust status of Indian lands. Since 1961, however, these difficulties have been effectively resolved. Today, Indians on reservations are eligible as are other citizens for mortgage insurance in the building or improvement of homes under the programs of the Federal Housing Administration. They are in a position to form tribal housing authorities and establish low-rent Projects under the programs of the Public Housing Administration. Two such projects on Indian reservations are now actively under way. Altogether 11 tribal housing authorities have requested loans from the Public Housing Administration for 861 dwelling units.

Over and beyond this, we have been working closely with the Public Housing Administration on a new program that is likely to prove even more broadly beneficial on Indian reservations. This is a mutual-help program based on the same principle as the old-fashioned barn-raising when a group of neighbors got together and polled their manpower and resources on a common project. On Indian reservations self-help housing will be a joint enterprise involving a group of Indian families, a tribal organization, the Public Housing Administration, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. BIA will organize and supervise the projects; PHA will provide loan funds for the purchase of materials and the employment of skilled labor; the tribe will make the land available; and the individual Indians will furnish the bulk of the labor working as a team. Monthly payments will be modest and the plan contemplates that the Indian occupant will own his home free and clear in 16 to 18 years. Because the rents that have to be charged even in low-rent public housing projects are beyond the reach of most Indian families on the reservations, we believe that this new program is needed as a supplement to bring about a nationally significant volume of Indian housing improvement over the next five or ten years.

From this brief survey I hope it will be apparent that we are not just drifting along with the tide in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, performing our custodial functions as the trustees of Indian property, and trying to stay out of difficulty. We have expanded and re-energized the developmental activities of the Bureau we have broken new ground; and I believe we have made measurable and encouraging progress over the past two years toward the three prime goals I mentioned earlier.

But we are not complacent.

In the field of school construction, for example, despite our good progress over the past years, we have not yet caught up with the needs of the rapidly increasing school-age Indian population for classroom and dormitory space. The earliest date when we could reasonably hope to do so is the fall of 1965. There was too big a backlog of unmet need in 1961. Moreover, the school-age population growth since that time on the reservations has been too rapid for us to get on top of this problem in just two years. Once we do, we will still be faced, of course, with the need to keep pace with the population increases of the future and we will still have overcrowded and obsolete structures to repair and replace.

In addition, we have to worry about a drop-out rate in our Federal Indian schools which runs about 50 percent higher than the national average. We have a great deal more to do in improving our techniques of English language instruction. We need many more counsellors in the dormitories of our boarding schools. I am hopeful that the proposed National Service Corps can eventually provide us with additional manpower for this purpose.

On the economic development side, the needs are almost overwhelming. I mentioned earlier that we now have over 1,000 Indians working in manufacturing plants on or near the reservations and that we have another 5,500 at work on comparatively short-range projects under the Accelerated Public Works Program. Measured against these encouraging statistics, we have some others which are not quite so exhilarating. One is the fact that the average annual income of Indian families on reservations is still somewhere between one-fourth and one third of the comparable national figure. And the current rate of unemployment on the reservations is about 40 percent, which is roughly seven or eight times the present national average. So you can see that, as far as income and employment are concerned, we have actually moved only a few feet on a mile-long journey. When we look at the needs and the opportunities for resource development, a similar picture comes into focus. On the Colorado River Reservation in western Arizona, we have the oldest federally sponsored irrigation project in the United States. It was started right after the Civil War, in 1867. Today, as it approaches the centennial mark, it is still only about one-third completed; in fact, we do not have one major irrigation project, out of the many dozens that have been started on Indian lands, that has been developed all the way to its full potential. We also have great unmet needs in the development of forest and range resources, in the exploration for economically valuable minerals, and in realizing the tremendous tourism potentials that lie in Indian country.

For the fact is that Indian reservations with their 742,000 acres of lakes, their 7,400 miles of rivers and streams, their 13 million acres of timberland, and their mountain and desert scenery now provide us with some of the most desirable open space we still have left here in the United states. In the years ahead one of our major objectives will be to develop these potentials into a major outdoor recreation resource of the Nation and a source of both income and employment for the Indian owners.

To bring about widespread and large-scale economic development of Indian reservations, tremendous financing will obviously be needed. Some of it will have to come from public funds, but the major part of the financing will probably have to come from private sources, either in the form of loans or as venture capital. Even with the recent increase in our revolving loan fund, we in the Indian Bureau are in much the same position as a small country banker who has in his neighborhood a huge mining complex, a major real estate development and a large industrial corporation. As matters stand today, we cannot meet adequately the financial demands for Indian developments.

One important potential source of funds for the financing of tribal programs and tribal enterprises is the judgment money resulting from claims filed against the United States by tribes with the Indian Claims Commission. For the most part these are claims based on inadequate compensation for lands which the tribes sold to the national government many years ago. The Indian Claims Commission was established in 1946 for the specific purpose of adjudicating such claims.

So far net awards have been granted in 43 cases and Congress has appropriated nearly $86 million by way of compensation. But there are still 641 claims awaiting final settlement and among these are some of the biggest claims filed with the Indian Claims Commission--several of them potentially larger than any judgments that have been awarded to date.

As trustees for Indian property, we in the Bureau have a clear-cut responsibility to safeguard the Indian beneficiaries against a dissipation of these funds. One way in which they can be dissipated with little or no lasting benefit is through a blanket per capita distribution of the entire amount to the individual beneficiaries. A single example will, I believe, serve to illustrate the point. One of the largest awards so far made by the Indian Claims Commission was in the amount of nearly $15 million. Now, this sounds like a good round sum which might well put a number of Indians in a highly advantageous economic position. But the difficulty is that the beneficiaries of this award are the Indians of this particular tribe who were on the tribal rolls when they were closed nearly 60 years ago. There were nearly 42,000 of them at that time. Needless to say, the great majority of these original enrollees are no longer alive and the shares of those who have died must be distributed among their heirs in the same way as any other inheritance. So the net result is that some individuals will be entitled to payments of less than $10 each, and practically no one will receive more than $280.

Another way in which tribal funds can be dissipated is through a liquidation 0f all the tribal assets and a division of the proceeds among the members. This kind of program is beneficial to those Indians who have left the reservation but decidedly unfair to those who have stayed behind because it leaves them resident but without an economic base. A much more equitable and broadly beneficial way of handling these judgment moneys, we believe, is to use them in part for the financing of tribal enterprises which can yield regular income for all tribal members over an extended period and in part for planned program of family expenditure by tribal members both on and off the reservation.

I could go on endlessly with the ramifications of this perplexing and fascinating field of human affairs. I hesitate to describe such a complex aspect of our national life in a phrase because, as everyone in this room knows, there are as many problems in Indian affairs as there are human beings concerned. Each has his own problem--each, perhaps, has his own solution. But if I were compelled to describe this phenomenon in a phrase I would say it is "Poverty in the midst of abundance."

A small but historically and emotionally significant segment of our population has been largely left behind the major economic and social advances made in the United States during the first three-fifths of the twentieth century. The conscience of the American people is from time to time aroused over injustices to the First Americans. One such great reappraisal was made in the late 1920's and early 1930’s. Now, the country is again going through a reappraisal of the Indians' well-being.

As Commissioner, I welcome the awakening of the national conscience and the spotlight that is focused on the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the revitalized bureau of today we are determined to bring the reservation communities into the stream of social and economic advance, so that they, too, may be swept along to a better life and a brighter future. Our goals have been stated and our programs have been tested to the point where we know they will work if they are adequately funded and efficiently executed. We intend to meet that challenge.

(DENVER) - Interior's Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Aurene Martin announced today that Secretary Gale A. Norton approved $1,088,000 in federal Save America's Treasures grants to help protect and preserve the nation's American Indian cultural heritage. Martin made the announcement at a meeting today at a national Indian education summit in Denver, Colo. The meeting, "Learn Today, Lead Tomorrow: Accountability for Results," is sponsored by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Indian Education Programs. Laura Bush, honorary chair of the Committee on the Arts and the Humanities said, "The story of America is told through historic architecture, art and writings. The grants provided by Save America's Treasures will help preserve the pieces of our heritage for future generations." The SAT federal grants program is administered by the National Park Service in partnership with the Committee on the Arts and Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities and Institute of Museum and Library services.

"The Save America's Treasures Program will fund much-needed conservation and repair efforts for several important American Indian collections and structures," Secretary Norton said. "These awards illustrate the Interior Department's 2003 National American Indian Heritage Month theme, 'Celebrating the American Indian Spirit.' We must do all we can to preserve and protect these treasures for future generations of Americans," Martin said. The awards, which coincide with the celebration of National American Indian Heritage Month, were given to five projects in four states and the District of Columbia for conservation, restoration and preservation of collections of American Indian artifacts and records.

Today's announcement totals $14,389,925 for 63 projects in 29 states and the District of Columbia. The SAT grants to protect and preserve the nation's American Indian cultural heritage announced today include the following:

Navajo Nation Council Chamber, Window Rock, Ariz. - Constructed by the Navajo Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935, the Navajo Nation Council Chamber has remained in continuous use as the seat of government of the Navajo Nation. It is now proposed for designation as a National Historic Landmark. This grant will be used to repair the roof that now threatens the building and its murals.

Award amount: $250,000

Anthropology Collection, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, Calif. - This award will be used to implement a climate control system to protect the collection of more than 65,000 cultural artifacts from the indigenous peoples of western North America. The collection includes an extensive array of objects associated with the Chumash people and the oldest verified human remains in North America.

Award amount: $82,500

Bureau of American Ethnology Photograph Collection, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. - Funds will be used to provide conservation treatments and appropriate archival storage for the collection of more than 100,000 glass-plate and acetate film negatives and vintage photographic prints. The collection provides an unparalleled photograph record of American Indian life and of Federal governmental relations with Native people.

Award amount: $153,500

North Carolina Archeological Collection, University of N.C., Chapel Hill - This grant will be used to support re-housing the collection of more than 5 million artifacts and associated records covering 12,000 years of pre-Columbian history in a climate-controlled facility.

Award amount: $450,000

Ozette Artifact Collection, Makah Cultural and Research Center, Neah Bay, Wash. - Funds will be used to support an improved climate control system to preserve this important collection of more than 55,000 artifacts excavated from the village of Ozette, which has been occupied for several thousand years by the Makah Indian Nation. The collection provides a remarkable view of Northwest Coast material culture prior to European contact.

Award amount: $152,000

Secretary Norton announced 58 other historic projects in 29 states and the District of Columbia. "I am delighted to share in advancing the protection and preservation of this national legacy for future generations to learn from and enjoy," Norton said. "These historic structures tell important stories of our freedom, culture and heritage."

Other historical projects that were awarded SAT grants include the following:

California

SS Jeremiah O'Brien, National Liberty Ship Memorial, San Francisco-A national historic Landmark, the SS Jeremiah O'Brien is the last surviving, fully operational vessel of the World War II Normandy invasion fleet. It is also the country's first Legacy Ship, an operational historic vessel re-activated and manned by an all-volunteer crew. Funds will be used to address corrosion that threatens the watertight integrity of the ship.

Award amount: $200,000

Colorado

Naropa Audio Archive, Naropa University, Boulder-This collection holds thousands of hours of readings, lectures and seminars recorded at Naropa University since 1974 by central figures of the post-World War II, avant-garde in America. Work will include preserving original recordings in secure, climate-controlled storage and making digital copies for use.

Award amount: $100,000

Connecticut

Lyme Art Colony Panel Paintings, Florence Griswold House, Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme-During the early 20th century, Florence Griswold operated a boarding house that became the center of American Impressionism and home to notable artists such as Childe Hassam and Henry Ward Ranger. The boarders painted more than 40 paintings on door and wall panels throughout the house. This grant will support the installation of a climate-control system to preserve these paintings.

Award amount: $150,000

Oral History Project, American Music Archive, Yale University School of Music and Library, New Haven-This archive is dedicated to the collection and preservation of oral and video memoirs of major figures in American music. The detailed interviews with significant musicians, such as Eubie Blake, John Cage, Aaron Copeland, and Duke Ellington, are primary-source materials for students and scholars. Funds will support the creation of preservation and use copies of the materials in the collection.

Award amount: $148,000

John Rogers Sculpture Groups and Studio, New Canaan Historical Society, New Canaan. John Rogers was the first sculptor to place work in the average American home, and his sculptural groups illustrate the customs, dress and activities of Victorian life. His 1878 National Historic Landmark studio houses one of the finest collections of Rogers Groups in the nation. This grant will support conservation of the collection and installation of a climate control and air filtration system to ensure long-term preservation of both the building and the collection.

Award amount: $95,000

District of Columbia

Washington Star Photograph Collection, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, D.C.-The Star was Washington's afternoon newspaper from 1852 until 1981. Its photograph collection documents the significant political, social and cultural events of the mid-20th century. This grant will be used to produce preservation copy negatives of 20,000 black and white prints in the collection and archival storage for the negatives and photographs.

Award amount: $75,000

Florida

Eagle Film City/Richard Norman Silent Film Studios, Jacksonville/Duval County Consolidated Government, Jacksonville-Silent filmmaker Richard Norman produced full-length feature films with African American casts for distribution to then-segregated theaters at this intact, early 20th century complex. Funds will be used to secure the building envelope in preparation for a complete restoration.

Award amount: $ 225,000

Georgia

North End Plantation Tabby Buildings, Ossabaw Island Foundation, Ossabaw Island. Predating the Civil War, these former slave cabins are rare, surviving vernacular buildings constructed of the indigenous concrete known as "tabby," which is composed of seashells and lime. Funds will be used to reverse past misguided repairs to the tabby material and to restore the buildings using appropriate preservation treatments.

Award amount: $400,000

Civil War Naval Flag Collection, Port Columbus National Civil War Naval Museum, Columbus-Of the hundreds of extant Civil War flags, very few are naval flags. This grant will be used to conserve seven naval flags and make them available for public viewing for the first time since the Civil War.

Award amount: $68,000

Illinois

Riverside Water Tower, Village of Riverside-Frederick Law Olmsted's and Calvert Vaux's 1868-1869 design for Riverside, now a National Historic Landmark district, made it the first community in the country to integrate open spaces and parkland into the urban environment. Public buildings such as William LeBaron Jenney's Gothic Revival Water Tower, served both aesthetic and practical functions. This grant will restore masonry and repair water damage to this distinctive tower.

Award amount: $275,000

Fountain of Time, Chicago Park District, Chicago-Completed in 1922, this fountain was the result of a collaboration between Chicago sculptor Lorado Taft and Washington, DC engineer and sculptor John J. Earley. The grant will support the conservation and restoration of the fountain's reflecting pool, which has not held water for at least three decades.

Award amount: $250,000

Kentucky

United States Marine Hospital, Louisville/Jefferson Metropolitan Government, Louisville. Designed by Robert Mills and constructed between 1845 and 1852, this National Historic Landmark primarily served mariners involved in shipping on the inland waterways. Funds will be used to replace the roof and perform other exterior work to weatherproof the building.

Award amount: $375,000

Maine

Skolfield-Whittier House Collections, Pejepscot Historical Society, Brunswick - The Skolfield-Whittier House, a time capsule of life in Victorian America, is the estate of a sea captain and his family. Partially occupied until 1990, the estate's furniture is still arranged as it was in 1888, and the original possessions remain where their owners left them, in closets, the attic and basement. This grant will be used to implement a climate control system to preserve these artifacts.

Award amount: $50,000

Maryland

Lockhouses, Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Hagerston - The C&O Canal operated from 1828 to 1924 as a transportation route between Cumberland, Md., and the port of Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of original structures remain along the canal, and this grant will be used to provide preservation treatments for the building envelopes of 18 lockhouses constructed between 1830 and 1910.

Award amount: $150,000

Locomotive Collection, B&O Railroad Museum, Baltimore - Housed in the National Historic Landmark B&O Railroad Passenger Car Roundhouse, the museum contains one of the premier railroading collections in the world. Rare surviving examples of locomotives that changed the railroad industry and the North American landscape highlight the collection. This grant will assist with restoring eight locomotives damaged by the February 2003 collapse of half of the Roundhouse roof under the weight of more than two feet of snow.

Award amount: $500,000

Sound Collection, National Council for the Traditional Arts, Silver Spring-Founded in 1933, the council is dedicated to the documentation and preservation of the folk and traditional arts in the United States. Its sound collection includes examples of the broad geographic and cultural diversity of American music, including Piedmont and Delta blues, Appalachian and Ozark ballad singing, polka, mariachi and many more. Much of the collection is in danger of loss due to unstable original media. This grant will support conservation of the original recordings and copying to stable formats.

Award amount: $ 150,000

Massachusetts

John Quincy Adams' Diary, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston-Adams' 50-volume manuscript diary spans 68 years, from 1779 to 1847, and includes a remarkable wealth of information on early 19th century America. This grant will support conservation treatments for the diary pages, spines and covers.

Award amount: $100,000

Gardens and Grounds, Longfellow National Historic Site, Cambridge - This National Historic Landmark served as George Washington's headquarters during the 1775-1776 Siege of Boston and later was the home of writer and educator Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This grant will be used to arrest deterioration and disease of plant materials, rejuvenate historic plantings and restore disappearing features of the gardens and grounds.

Award amount: $200,000

Hemingway Collection, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston-Ernest Hemingway's widow, Mary, placed this collection of the famed author's papers, books, photographs and artifacts at the Kennedy Library out of gratitude for President Kennedy's help in facilitating her travel to Cuba to retrieve items her husband left behind after Castro's takeover. This grant will enable the library to conserve the collection and provide special storage for fragile and oversized items.

Award amount: $150,000

Mississippi

Eudora Welty House, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson-Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty lived in this Tudor Revival style house from its construction in 1925 until her death in 2001. The house contains all her belongings and her large, comprehensive library. This grant will be used to upgrade inadequate electrical, plumbing and fire suppression systems and to address water penetration that has damaged some interior features.

Award amount: $251,000

L.Q.C. Lamar House, Oxford-Lafayette County Heritage Foundation, Oxford - During his career, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar drafted the Mississippi Secession Ordinance, led the "New South" movement, and served as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice and Secretary of the Interior. This grant will help rescue his National Historic Landmark home from structural collapse.

Award amount: $390,000

Missouri

Daniel Boone Home, Lindenwold University, Defiance - Constructed circa 1803 by the Boone family, this stone farmhouse is an early western example of a design inspired by the eastern federal style. This grant will be used to repair the damaged roof, foundation and masonry.

Award amount: $200,000

Nebraska

Arbor Lodge, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Nebraska City - This National Historic Landmark was the home of J. Sterling Morton, head of the Morton Salt Company. His interest in tree planting led Nebraska to declare the first official Arbor Day in 1874, a day that is now recognized in all 50 states and 12 foreign countries. This grant will support replacement of the roof and restoration of deteriorated exterior wood elements.

Award amount: $254,000

New Mexico

Seton Castle, Academy for the Love of Learning, Seton Village - This National Historic Landmark is the last home of 20th century American artist, author, scientist and naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton, who helped to bring the Boy Scout movement to the United States. Funds will be used to restore damage done by water penetration and vandalism. Award amount: $330,000 County Courthouse, Luna County, Deming-In 1916, forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa attacked the village of Columbus, N. M., and some of his accomplices were later captured in Mexico and returned to the Luna County Courthouse for trial by General "Blackjack" Pershing. This grant will support restoration of the exterior masonry and improvements to interior systems.

Award amount: $340,000

New York

Diorama Hall, Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, Centerport - Avid naturalist William K. Vanderbilt II created Diorama Hall, designed by Warren and Wetmore, to house his natural history collection on his Long Island summer estate. American landscape artist Henry Hobart Nichols painted the hall's nine natural history dioramas. This grant will be used to restore the diorama exhibits, which were closed due to deterioration in 1996.

Award amount: $135,000

Fort Ticonderoga, Fort Ticonderoga Association, Ticonderoga - This National Historic Landmark fort was the scene of an important French victory in the Seven Years' War and the first American victory in the Revolutionary War. An early 20th century restoration of the fort used inadequate materials that have been damaged and destroyed by normal weather cycles, leading to structural instability in portions of the wall. Funds will be used to restore the south curtain wall, where these problems are most severe.

Award amount: $275,000

Motion Picture Collection, George Eastman House, Rochester - Introduced in 1912, 28mm film revolutionized motion picture viewing with a format that was easier to handle than the customary 35mm film used for theaters. The 28mm format made it possible to show movies at home and in schools, clubs and churches. However, the film enjoyed only brief popularity and was supplanted in the 1920s by the even smaller 16mm film. This grant will support the transfer of 28mm films onto contemporary archival film formats, making films that have been unviewed for 80 years available to scholars and the public. Award amount: $380,000 Jean Hasbrouck House, Huguenot Historical Society, New Paltz. This National Historic Landmark is one of the few surviving late 17th and early 18th century dwellings built by the French Huguenots who founded New Paltz. The grant will support the restoration of the building's north wall, which is close to structural collapse due to foundation failure.

Award amount: $250,000

George Balanchine Foundation Video Archives, George Balanchine Foundation, New York. Regarded as the world's greatest contemporary choreographer of ballet, Russian-born George Balanchine immigrated in 1933 to the United States, where he revolutionized the dance world and founded the esteemed School of American Ballet. This grant will support the archival video recording of Balanchine's original dancers and role-creators teaching younger dancers the choreography of many of Balanchine's major works. Award amount: $50,000 Olana, Olana State Historic Site/Olana Partnership, Hudson-This National Historic Landmark is the Persian-inspired home that Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church designed for himself, with the assistance of architect Calvert Vaux. The grant will support the restoration of its severely deteriorated Studio Tower and its six prominent chimneys.

Award amount: $ 250,000

General Electric Photograph Collection, Schenectady Museum, Schenectady - This collection of more than 850,000 photographic prints and negatives documents the history of the General Electric Company, its factories, products and product installations, and employees. The grant will provide appropriate archival storage for the images in this important collection. Award amount: $100,000 Round Lake Auditorium, Village of Round Lake-The auditorium is the centerpiece of Round Lake, an intact 19th century camp meeting complex. It houses the oldest, largest three keyboard tracker pipe organ remaining in the United States. Funds will be used to repair the auditorium's deteriorated wood framing and masonry foundation so that the building can continue in active community use.

Award amount: $225,000

Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion, Ukranian Institute of America, New York - This National Historic Landmark, an outstanding example of the picturesque Neo-French Gothic style, was the home of Harry F. Sinclair, founder of Sinclair Oil and Refining Company and a major figure in the Teapot Dome Scandal. The grant will support the replacement of deteriorated electrical wiring and interior drainage systems.

Award amount: $270,000

Perimeter Fence, New York Botanical Garden, New York - This formal perimeter fence designed by Brinley and Holbrook gives visitors their first impression of the New York Botanical Garden. National Historic Landmark Funds will support restoration of the deteriorated stone and iron components of the fence.

Award amount: $200,000

North Carolina

North Carolina Archeological Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill-This collection contains over 5 million artifacts and associated records covering 12,000 years of history. The mostly pre-Columbian collection has great significance for American Indians. This grant will support re-housing the collection in a climate-controlled facility.

Award amount: $450,000

Ohio

Showboat Majestic, Cincinnati Recreation Commission, Cincinnati - This National Historic Landmark is the last historic American floating theater and the only existing intact showboat. In 1969, the original wood hull was encapsulated in a steel hull to meet safety regulations. Condensation within the steel hull led to the deterioration of structural wood beams and braces, which will be reinforced with this grant.

Award amount: $150,000

Cincinnati Union Terminal, Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati - Constructed in 1933, this is one of the last grand-scale, Art Deco terminals in the country. The massive roof of this National Historic Landmark is one of the largest freestanding half-domes in the world. The grant will be used to address deterioration of the roof and consequent water penetration problems.

Award amount: $250,000

Oklahoma

Televised Political Commercial Archive, University of Oklahoma, Norman - Established in 1985, the archive contains more than 80,000 examples of political advertising dating to the earliest years of television. The ads are for candidates running for local, state and national offices as well as for issues and ballot initiatives. Many are in obsolete formats. This grant will support the creation of preservation and use copies in appropriate archival formats. Award amount: $135,000

Oregon

Thomas Kay Woolen Mill, Mission Mill Museum Association, Salem - The mill is a Pacific Northwest example of an Atlantic coast and English type of textile mill, complete with textile manufacturing machinery. It demonstrates an entire manufacturing process by direct-drive waterpower. This grant will be used to restore deteriorated exterior masonry and windows to prevent water penetration of the structure.

Award amount: $250,000

Pennsylvania

Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, Bucks County Department of Parks and Recreation, Doylestown - This National Historic Landmark still produces tiles in the handcrafted tradition of its founder Henry Chapman Mercer. The 1911-1912 building is constructed of Mercer's own hand-mixed reinforced concrete and ornamented with his tiles and tile mosaics. The concrete construction contains no expansion joints, and this grant will be used to repair spalling and cracking inherent to this idiosyncratic construction method.

Award amount: $240,000

City Hall Tower Sculpture, City of Philadelphia Department of Arts and Culture. Completed in 1901, City Hall is a masterpiece of the Second Empire style and a National Historic Landmark, enhanced by 24-foot-high sculpture figure groups and massive eagles at the tower's base by the esteemed modern sculptor Alexander Milne Calder. This grant will provide conservation treatments for the Calder works.

Award amount: $300,000

Cliveden, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Philadelphia-This National Historic Landmark was constructed from 1763 to 1767 as the country house of colonial jurist Benjamin Chew, the last English Crown-appointed Chief Justice of Pennsylvania. The Battle of Germantown, which occurred in the house and on the grounds, was a turning point in the Revolutionary War. Grant funds will support the installation of a climate control system to protect the house against moisture penetration and rising damp.

Award amount: $300,000

Blacksmith Shop, Cambria Iron Works, Johnstown Area Heritage Association, Johnstown. This 1864 blacksmith shop produced forged metal equipment and tools used throughout the National Historic Landmark iron works. The grant will be used to stabilize the building envelope in preparation for a complete restoration.

Award amount: $261,925

Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Collections, The Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia - In preparation for the 300th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's birth in 2006, this grant will support the conservation of significant items associated with Franklin that are housed in the collections of more than a dozen institutions, including the first issue of the first edition of Poor Richard's Almanack, a Charles Willson Peale portrait of Franklin and Franklin's electrical machine.

Award amount: $300,000

Early American Sheet Music Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia - This 200,000 item-collection, which includes several rare, early editions of "The Star Spangled Banner," spans three centuries and is one of the most comprehensive collections in the United States. The library will use this grant to conserve and provide appropriate archival storage for the collection.

Award amount: $135,000

Wright Brothers Aeronautical Engineering Collection, The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Orville Wright bequeathed this collection of archival records and artifacts to the Franklin Institute upon his death in 1948. This grant will provide conservation treatments for the 300 items in the collection.

Award amount: $60,000

South Carolina

Old City Jail, School of the Building Arts, Charleston - The 1802 Gothic-style jail includes an addition in the 1820s by noted architect Robert Mills. Located in Charleston's National Historic Landmark District, it has been vacant for over 60 years. This grant will support stabilization of the building envelope in preparation for a complete restoration and subsequent return to active use as a school of the building arts.

Award amount: $500,000

Tennessee

Acetate and Vinyl Recording Transcriptions, Country Music Foundation, Nashville-This collection of more than 14,000 transcriptions from the 1930s to the 1960s was originally created as temporary recordings intended to be played only a few times. Many of the recordings, such as live Grand Ole Opry NBC Network Radio Broadcasts of noted country music performers, are duplicated nowhere else. The grant will support preservation and conservation treatments to address the physical deterioration of the collection due to age and previous improper storage.

Award amount: $214,000

Texas

Elisabet Ney Studio Formosa, City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department-A classically trained German sculptor who immigrated to America in 1871, Elisabet Ney built Formosa to her own design in 1892. The studio now houses a collection of her work. Funds will be used to address water penetration into the building.

Award amount: $250,000

Vermont

Calvin Coolidge Homestead, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, Plymouth-The homestead National Historic Landmark District includes 11 buildings at the center of the village of Plymouth. The grant will be used to install a fire suppression system in these frame buildings.

Award amount: $200,000

Robbins & Lawrence Armory and Machine Shop, American Precision Museum, Windsor Machine tools that improved the production of interchangeable parts, which stimulated mass production and America's Industrial Revolution, were manufactured in this National Historic Landmark that now houses the American Precision Museum. Funds will be used to repair the deteriorated roof and restore exterior masonry.

Award amount: $200,000

Virginia

Stratford Hall, Robert E. Lee Memorial Association, Stratford-This National Historic Landmark was the family home of the Lees, whose notable members included Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee, signers of the Declaration of Independence and Civil War General Robert E. Lee. This grant will support the installation of a climate control system to protect the 18th century house and its collections.

Award amount: $300,000

Washington

City Hall, Jefferson County Historical Society, Port Townsend-City Hall is a pivotal structure in the Port Townsend National Historic Landmark District. Funds will be used to repair the exterior sandstone elements of the 1892 building, which have deteriorated due to age and to the past application of an incompatible cement coating.

Award amount: $280,000

Wisconsin Milton House, Milton Historical Society,Milton-This National Historic Landmark served as a transfer point on the Underground Railroad. Funds will be used to reinforce structural members weakened by an insect infestation and to correct past, inappropriate maintenance treatments.

Award amount: $275,000

SAT grants must be matched dollar-for-dollar with non-federal funds. Save America's Treasures at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the private sector partner, each year assists many of the federal SAT grantees in raising required matching funds.

Additional information on the Save America's Treasures program can be found on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities Web site at http://www.pcah.gov/, the National Park Service Web site at www2.cr.nps.gov/treasures/index.htm, or by contacting the NPS at 202-343-9570, ext.6.

Assistant to the Secretary office "Interior' for Indian Affairs Marvin L. Franklin today announced the award of a $2.3 million contract to expand the facilities of Sherman Indian School, Riverside, California. This is the second phase of a $5.2 million effort to modernize the school

The contract was awarded to Buster and Schuler Construction, lnc. Redland, California.

A construction program for the 72-year-old school began last year. At that time, a contract to build administrative and academic facilities was let for $2.9 million. When construction is completed, the school will be able to accommodate 1,000 instead of the 800 it has served

"Education of Indian people is a critical need,” Franklin said. "We cannot expect Indian young people to progress beyond their parents in yesterday’s school plant. “

The present contract --for the second phase of construction --is for the building of a physical education center, a physical education laboratory, a fine arts center, and to remodel the existing buildings that make up the student center and warehouses

Thirty Choctaw Indian students from Choctaw Central High School, a Bureau of Inc1ian Affairs school at Philadelphia, Miss., sang songs of the Choctaw, Quapaw, Kiowa, Osage, Hopi, Acana Pueblo, and Navajo tribes in their Choctaw costumes in an auditorium of the Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., on May 4.

Their Washington, D.C., appearance followed one before the Southern Division of the Music Educators. National Conference, Norfolk, Va., May 3. To appear before the Music Educators National Conference the group had to be recommended by leading musicians. The Choctaw Chorus was recommended by the Mississippi State Supervisor of Music and the head of the music department of the University of Southern Mississippi.

"The students learned their songs from the Indian chanters of the Choctaw Tribe. “Jimmie Gibson, a Choctaw and principal of Choctaw Central High School, explained before an audience that included bureau of Indian Affairs and other Department of the Interior personnel as well as the public.

Among the distinguished guests at the performance were Miss Wilma Victor, a Choctaw Indian and an Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, and Phillip Martin, Chairman, Mississippi Choctaw Tribe.

The songs the chorus sang were arranged by Louis W. Ballard, a Quapaw­ Cherokee Indian who is a music curriculum specialist of the Bureau of Indian Affairs who directs his efforts toward putting American Indian music into Bureau of Indian Affairs classrooms. The group also performed Choctaw dances.

Among the songs the group sang were the Quapaw Peyote Song, Hopi Com Dance Song, Osage Soldier's Song, Ponca War Dance Song, Acana Rain Dance Song, and the Navajo Happiness Song. The chorus was directed by Minnie A. Hand and Cindy Brantley.

Dances included were the Fast War Dance, Turtle Dance, Wedding Dance, Changing Partners, and Walk Dance -- all of the Choctaw Indian Tribe. Drums and rattles accompanied much of the singing and dancing.

The Choctaw choral work is a part of the Title III program under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. According to school Principal Gibson, California Achievement rest grades for the pupils have shown a clear correlation between the amount of music instruction received and improvement in reading and language skills.

Choctaw Indians still speak the Choctaw language by preference and learn English as a second language. The Choctaw language lacks many sounds and many concepts common in English. It also contains sounds that are not contained in English and these tend to carry over into English expression.

The music program of the school is · integrated with the language arts and social studies program and music, singing,. Chants, and dancing are orchestrated with literary historical, and social events. The Choctaw chants, dances, and rhythms are taped or recorded for posterity.

Mrs. Minnie Hand, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Choctaw music teacher says: “I have seen the magic of music work for Choctaw children. I have seen them-freed of 'inhibition as they dance, sing, and play small melody instruments. I have seen them lost in the mood of music, but I haven't seen them lost in music that really reached them deep down until I learned the Choctaw music and taught it to them.”

Miss Wilma Victor commenting upon the Washington, D. C. performance, said: “I know of no other Title III program that has excelled the Choctaw Central High School chorus. “ Miss Victor served on the advisory board that authorized the funding of the Choctaw chorus project under the Title III program.

The Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Pine Ridge Agency, Anthony Whirlwind Horse, is being transferred to the Aberdeen, South Dakota area office to avoid real or apparent conflict of interest situations on the Pine Ridge Reservation where his brother, Elijah, was recently elected President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest Gerard said that "the decision to reassign Mr. Whirlwind Horse was based on the opinions and advice of the Solicitor and the Department's Ethics Counselor."

Whirlwind Horse will be Tribal Government and Indian Rights Officer in the area office, effective September 24. His grade and pay will not be changed by the transfer.

A former teacher and school principal on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Whirling Horse was appointed Superintendent in November, 1976. A Navy veteran, he is a graduate of the Black Hills State College at Spearfish, South Dakota and has a Master's degree in education from Northern State College, Aberdeen.

Gerrard said that tribal officials had requested that Whirlwind Horse be kept in his position at Pine Ridge but this was not considered possible because, as bother of the tribal president, he would be placed in positions which would at least apparently, if not actually, conflict with Federal regulations.

Gerard said that Whirlwind Horse in his new position, "would be a forceful advocate for all of the tribes served by the Aberdeen Area Office."

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson has appointed Phyllis Cross, a Mandan-Hidatsa, and Intergovernmental Relations Officer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Her appointment was effective March 30.

Ms. Cross has been Special Assistant to the Regional Director for Indian Affairs, Region VIII, in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. She had previously served as Special Assistant to the Regional Director for the Regional Council.

A native of Elbowoods, North Dakota, Ms. Cross received her elementary and secondary education at BIA schools on the Fort Berthold Reservation. She then completed nursing training at the St. Alexius Hospital in Bismarck, North Dakota. She spent five years as a United States Air Force nurse and returned to school to earn BS and MS degrees at the University of Colorado. She has specialized in Public Health and Psychiatric nursing.

Ms. Cross was Director of Nursing for the Boulder, Colorado, City County Health Department and Associate Director of Nursing at the University of Colorado Medical Center, Denver, before entering Federal service as a Mental Health Program Specialist with HEW in 1970.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the establishment of a new Bureau of Indian Affairs agency office to serve Indians in the state of Michigan.

The new agency, to be located at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, will have in its jurisdiction the Bay Mills Indian Community and the Original Band of Sault Ste. Marie Chippewas at Sault Ste. Marie; the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community at L'Anse; the Hannaville Indian Community at Escanaba and the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe at Mt. Pleasant.

These tribal groups were previously served, together with all the Indians of Wisconsin, by an agency at Ashland, Wisconsin.

The organized tribes in Michigan, as well as the Intertribal Council of Michigan, have sought the establishment of a Michigan agency so that the Bureau of Indian Affairs services would be more directly and easily available to them.

The establishment of the new agency will reduce travel distances and costs, permit more day-to-day contact and eliminate the complications of one agency dealing with two sets of state agencies and laws.

The new office will be under the Bureau's Minneapolis Area Office.