OPA

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of David N. Burch as Superintendent at the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Intermountain School in Brigham City, Utah. Since 1970, Burch has been Deputy Assistant Area Director for Education in the Phoenix Area Office.

Intermountain was once the Bureau's largest school as an off-reservation boarding high school for Navajo Indian students. It is now an inter-tribal school, and the administration was transferred from the Navajo Area to the Phoenix Area last summer.

Burch, a Missouri native, is a 1958 graduate of Chadron State College in Nebraska. He earned his Master's degree in 1967 at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.

An Air Force veteran, Burch has worked with the BIA since 1958. He has been a teacher, department head and school principal. He was the Education Program Administrator on the Turtle Mountain Reservation at Belcourt, North Dakota before moving to the Phoenix Area Office.

Regulations governing the enrollment of Cherokee Indians who will share in the per capita distribution of $1 million are being published in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The fund to be distributed is part of an award made by the Indian Claims Commission to the Cherokee Nation as additional compensation for lands taken between 1872 and 1893.

According to the regulations, only those Cherokees who were alive on November 5, 1975 and whose names appear on one of eight final rolls of the tribe are eligible for enrollment.

The eight final rolls are listed as follows: 1) Cherokees by Blood, approved March 4, 1907; 2) Cherokees by Blood, approved August 1, 1914; 3) Cherokees by Blood, minor children (1907); 4) Delaware Cherokees (1907); 5) Cherokees by Intermarriage (1907); Cherokee Freedmen, approved March 4, 1907; 7) Cherokee Freedmen; approved August 1, 1914; or 8) Cherokee Freedmen, minor children (1907).

Donald E. Loudner, a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Yankton, South Dakota Agency, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Loudner has been Coordinator of the Office of Indian Affairs for the State of South Dakota for the last four years.

A long-time resident of Mitchell, South Dakota, Loudner was active in Indian matters there, and for six years was a member of the South Dakota State Indian Commission.

Loudner, 44, worked for almost 20 years as a purchasing agent and supply clerk for the South Dakota National Guard. A veteran of the United States Army Infantry, he has been a post commander and held other offices in the American As an active member in the National Guard, he now holds legion the rank of Chief Warrant Officer.

Joseph W. Gorrell, Deputy Director of Interior's Bureau of Outdoor Recreation (BOR), has been appointed to direct financial management programs for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Commissioner Thompson said, ''This is a position of critical importance so I am pleased to fill it with someone so highly qualified and competent."

Gorrell, 43, has been BOR's Deputy Director since January, 1975. He was formerly a staff assistant to Interior's Assistant Secretary for Land and Water Resources, a budget examiner with the Office of Management and Budget and a program analyst with the Department of Agriculture.

Gorrell began his government service as a forester after graduating in 1954 from Purdue University with a BS in Forestry. He later earned Masters' degrees from both the University of California at Berkeley and Yale. In 1968 he received the Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from Catholic University.

In his new position as Assistant Director (Financial Management) in the Office of Administration, Gorrell will be responsible for program planning and budget development for the Bureau. He will also have responsibility for the accounting operations and the compensation and employee data systems.

Gorrell reported for duty April 12. He succeeds John P. Sykes who has retired.

Ronald L. Esquerra, an enrolled member of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, has been appointed Director of the bureau of Indian Affair’s Albuquerque Area, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Esquerra, 31, has been Executive Assistant to Commissioner Thompson the past two years. He will report Albuquerque in mid-June. He succeeds Walter O. Olson retired in 1974.

"Ron has been my right hand," Thompson said. "I know he has the ability to handle the important responsibilities of the Albuquerque Area. He has proven his competence."

The Albuquerque Area includes most of New Mexico and Colorado.

Before caning to the Bureau, Esquerra was the Indian Field Officer in Phoenix, Ariz., for the Office of Minority Business Enterprise. In this capacity he managed Federal contracts and provided program assistance to Indian contractors in Arizona, California, New "Mexico and Nevada. He had previously worked in the Economic Development Administration as Deputy Special Assistant for Indian Affairs to the Assistant Secretary.

As a Ford Foundation leadership Development Fellow in 1970-71, Esquerra worked in numerous Federal, State, and tribal Indian programs. While completing graduate work at Arizona State University, he was also Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Arizona State Indian Community Action Program.

Esquerra majored in business management at Brigham Young University where he graduated with honors in 1966. After a two-year in military service he earned a Master’s in business administration at Arizona State.

He is perhaps the only Indian to complete the certification program of the American Mortgage Bankers Association at Northwestern University in Evanston, ill.

Esquerra grew up on the Colorado River Indian Reservation. In 1973 he was listed in the publication outstanding Young Americans.

"Walk the High Iron," a documentary film about American Indians learning the iron workers' trade, is now available for use by Indian organizations from Bureau of Indian Affairs Area Offices.

The 28-minute film, which was cited for excellence at the 1975 Chicago International Film Festival, shows Indian trainees at a special school operated by the International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers under a contract with the BIA.

The school at East Gary, Indiana, was started in 1972 as an approach to career development for Indians at least 31 years of age who might not be eligible for other apprenticeship opportunities because of age. In the four years of operation some 400 reservation Indians have learned ironworking through the l4-week course at the school.

Graduates of the course are placed in Iron Worker Locals across the country for further training as they work their way to a journeyman’s card.

Portions of the film were made at Ashland, Wisconsin and on the nearby Bad River Reservation.

The 16 mm color film was produced by the Film Documentary Institute of Washington, D.C. Mark Reardon was the writer and executive producer.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointments of two members of the Flathead Indian Tribe as BIA Agency

Superintendents.

Stephen A. Lozar, 50, has been named Superintendent of the Crow Agency in Montana and Wyman J. McDonald appointed Superintendent of the Fort Hall Agency in Idaho.

Lozar, an Army veteran, has been Superintendent of the Western Washington Agency and previously was in charge of the Colorado River Agency. He began his career with the BIA in 1954 and has worked in the Portland and Sacramento Area Offices and the Umatilla, Flathead and Wind River Agencies.

McDonald has been Superintendent of the Mescalero Apache Agency in New Mexico. He has worked with Indian Community Action Programs in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, was an EDA Program Development Specialist with the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. and worked in various BIA agencies.

A Marin Corps veteran, McDonald is a 1962 graduate of the University of Montana and in 1968 completed the Department of the Interior Managers Developmental Program. He is 38.

Both Lozar and McDonald are natives of St. Ignatius, Montana.

Regulations governing eligibility for preference in employment in the Bureau of Indian Affairs were published January 17 in the Federal Register, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

The regulations define the term "Indian" for purposes of initial hire, promotion, transfers and all other appointments to vacancies in the Bureau.

Those persons entitled to Indian preference, according to the regulations are:

* Members of any recognized Indian tribe now under Federal jurisdiction;

* Descendants of such members who were, on June 1, 1934, residing within the present boundaries of any Indian reservation;

* All others of one-half or more Indian blood of tribes indigenous to the United States;

* Eskimos and other aboriginal people of Alaska; and

* For the next three years from the effective date of these regulations, a person of at least one-quarter degree Indian ancestry of a currently federally recognized tribe whose rolls have been closed by an Act of Congress.

The proposed regulations have a grandfather clause which protects all persons employed by the Bureau of the effective date of these regulations who received preference in any previous appointment. They will continue to be preferences eligible so long as they are continuously employed by the Bureau.

These regulations implement a long-standing Federal policy which was clarified and strengthened by a 1974 Supreme Court decision.

These regulations are effective 30 days after publication.

Martin E. Seneca, Jr., is returning to the Bureau of Indian Affairs as Director of Trust Responsibilities, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

Seneca was formerly Trust Responsibilities Director from May, 1974 to November, 1976. He has most recently been with the Federal Energy Agency as Assistant General Counsel for Conservation and Deputy Assistant Administrator for Conservation and Environment.

Gerard, who has consistently stressed the priority of str4ngthening the Bureau's capacity to fulfill its role as trustee, said that "the role of trustee in an age of Indian self-determination is delicate. It requires understanding of the Indian peoples and the ability to work well with them. It also requires special knowledge, intelligence and strength. I think that Martin Seneca has these qualities and, consequently, I am pleased that he will be in this important position."

A member of the Seneca Indian Nation of New York, Seneca is a 1971 graduate of the Harvard School of Law. He earned a B.S. in Political Science and an M.S. in Public Administration from Brigham Young University.

Seneca, 36, is a former White House Fellow. He has and been worked a brief associate professor of law at the University of Utah and worked briefly for a Washington, D.C. law firm.

His appointment is effective January 29.

The Department of the Interior has ordered four coal companies to show cause within 30 days why their prospecting permits and mining leases on Crow Tribal lands in Montana should not be canceled because they exceed limitations on lease size.

Involved in the action are American Metals Climax (AMAX) and Shell Oil Co., which have mining leases; and the Peabody Coal Co. and Gulf Oil Corp. which have permits with options to lease. The companies are entitled to an administrative hearing on the matter.

The action follows by a year then-Secretary of the Interior Thomas Kleppe's decision that the companies' leases and lease options violated a 2,560-acre limitation. He ordered Shell and AMAX to cut their leases to the limit or show a clear need for more acreage. He also ruled that Peabody's and Gulf's req1.1ests for leases larger than 2,560 acres were unsupported and that larger leases would have to be negotiated with the Tribe.

Kleppe's decision was aimed at ending a suit the Crow Tribe filed against the Department in 1975, and later against the four coal companies, to have the leases and permits invalidated on grounds they exceeded acreage limitations and that the Department had failed to prepare Environmental Impact Statements on the leases.

The Tribe argued that leases--and permits granted with preferences to lease--are limited by regulation to 2,560 acres unless the permittee can show more acreage is necessary to provide coal for industrial facilities built on or near the reservation.

A continuation of the 1975 suit is now pending in the Montana U.S. District Court. In another attempt at ending the suit, the Department warned the companies last September that action to cancel would be initiated if no progress in negotiations were ma4e under the Kleppe order within 60 days. On the basis of that directive, the court gave the Department a 90-day stay but ordered it to report its position on the suit and on the validity of the leases and permits. The show cause order complies with that reporting deadline.

"Since we put the companies on notice in September there has been no progress in the negotiations--and none in the year since Secretary Kleppe's decision, for that matter, “said Interior Solicitor Leo M. Krulitz. “Some of the companies contend that because of disputes among the representation, they haven't known whom to negotiate with but regardless of the disputes, there have always been duly elected tribal officials to whom an offer might have been submitted.”

The four companies were successful bidders for coal prospecting permits on Crow lands in three sales dating back to 1968. Terms of the permits included exclusive options to lease for mining with a royalty of 17.5 cents per ton. Bonus payments for the permits ranged from as little as the $1 which Peabody paid for each of its 86,000 permit acres to AMAX’s $15.33 per acre for 16,617 acres.

Shell received a mining lease on 30,247 acres of permit lands in 1972 and AMAX on 14,236 acres in 1973. Gulf has asked for a lease on most of the 73,000 plus acres it has under permit and Peabody began negotiations with the tribe for an 11,000 acre mining lease. Both leases have been delayed pending completion of environmental Impact Statements. That work also hinges on negotiations between the tribe and the companies. In his 1977 order, Kleppe told the companies that Environmental Impact Statements would be required for each lease. But that no EIS work would begin until the companies reached agreement with the Tribe over lease size.