OPA

Nine American Indian high school students met their Congressmen, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and other Washington luminaries last week.

They were participants in the Washington Workshops Congressional Seminar June 15-22.

This week they are in New York City studying the operations of a large corporation as guests of the Union Carbide Corporation the Company also picked up the tab for the Washington seminar.

The seminar schedule included daily dialogue discussions with Congressmen, White House staff and other officials of Government. The students attended Congressional committee meetings and House and Senate chamber sessions and were briefed by Congressional staffers on the traditions and procedures of the Congress.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson spoke to the group Friday evening at the Mount Vernon College where the students lived for the week.

The Indian students are Janell Williams, Wanblee, South Dakota; Orla Wounded Knee, Fort Thompson, South Dakota; Amanda Dakota, Belcourt, North Dakota; Cheryl Connywerdy, Lawton, Oklahoma; Russell Taptto, Anadarko, Oklahoma; Alfredo Gonzalez, Sacaton, Arizona; Henry Salazar, Laveen, Arizona; Theresa Buckner, Omak, Washington; and Michael Gomez, Warm Springs, Oregon.

The tribal plan for the use and distribution of $4.5 million awarded to the Yankton Sioux Tribe by the Indian Claims Commission is being published in the Federal Register.

The plan has been approved by Congress and is effective February 7, 1975.

It calls for a per capita distribution of 80 percent of the award to tribal members as of the effective date. It is expected that the tribal roll will have been brought current within 60 days of that date.

The remaining 20 percent will be used for various tribal programs. These include a land purchase and development fund higher education fund, elderly and handicapped fund, a community development fund and a miscellaneous fund.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson said today that many of the recommendations made in a recently released report on the troubled conditions on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation were being implemented.

The report was prepared by a special commission appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. It dealt with problems in law enforcement and judicial services, tribal government, trust management functions, and provision of services to outlying areas of the reservation.

Thompson said that he would be meeting with tribal officials, BIA area and agency staffs and other involved governmental agencies to plan future actions on the reservation. Steps already taken, Thompson said, included:

The addition of 26 new positions to the law enforcement staff;

Appointment of a new special officer in charge of police operations;

Acquisition of needed new police vehicles and uniforms;

Upgrading of law enforcement positions and initiation of concentrated training programs;

Provision of $65,000 to assist the tribal court to catch up on a backlog of cases;

Administration Communication with the tribe and the Law Enforcement Assistance concerning the construction of a new detention and court facilities; Provision of $20,000 through the Bureau's Office of Trust Responsibilities to initiate a new land records system for the reservation; Provision of $10,000 to the tribe to plan improved communications on the reservation, and Scheduling of more than 75 miles of paved road construction for the present fiscal year. Thompson said that he considered the choice of a new Superintendent for Pine Ridge, the second largest reservation in the country, of major importance.

He added that he supports the Commission recommendation that a new position of Deputy Superintendent be established at the Pine Ridge Agency. "The Deputy might assume major responsibility for the internal administration of programs and thus free the Superintendent to work more closely with the tribal council and people throughout the reservation."

Thompson said that a greater proportion of the law enforcement staff would be deployed in the outlying areas and that efforts would be made to provide detention and court facilities at Kyle to serve some of these areas.

The reservation has been beset with extraordinary problems, including frequent eruptions of violence, since the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. Most recently two FBI agents and one Indian were shot to death in late June.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that the lists of all adult persons (18 and over) of Osage Indian descent are being prepared by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. One will contain the names and known addresses of persons of at least 1/4 degree Osage blood; the other will list Osage descendant persons possessing less than 1/4 degree of Osage blood and their known addresses.

The lists will be used to conduct a poll among the Osage Indians to determine whether a change in the present structure of the Osage tribal government is desired.

Preliminary lists have been prepared by the Bureau and sent to all Bureau field offices for public posting as well as to interested Osage organizations and Postmasters throughout Osage county. The list is divided into two sections.

Protests concerning the omission or inclusion on the lists of any person, or the blood quantum classification, should be sent to the Secretary of the Interior, Washington, D.C., before August 18. Corrections in mailing addresses should also be sent to the Secretary.

Commissioner Thompson stressed that the lists being prepared will be used only for the conduct of the poll. They will have no bearing on Osage Tribal membership rolls or the present system of managing Osage "headright" mineral interests.

When the lists are completed, each person named on them, whose address is known, will be mailed a copy of a proposed bill authorizing a change in the Osage government, an explanation of the effect of the bill should it be enacted, and a ballot to indicate preference.

The poll will be conducted by the American Arbitration Association.

Additional information can be obtained from the Office of Indian Services, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C. 20245.

A plan for the distribution of more than $260,000 awarded by the Indian Claims Commission to the Ottawa Indians of Oklahoma is being published in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

This award represents additional payment for six tracts of land in Northwestern Ohio that were ceded to the United States by four bands of Ottawa Indians under treaties of 1833 and 1831.

The plan, approved by Congress and made effective June 17, 1975, calls for a per capita distribution of the funds to those persons whose names appear on the final roll of the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma, published in the Federal Register August 13, 1959. The shares of deceased enrollees will be paid to their heirs or legatees.

Pursuant to the Act of August 3, 1956, Federal trust responsibilities for the tribe were terminated and the Ottawas ceased to function as Federally organized tribal entity in 1959.

The BIA's Muskogee, Oklahoma, Area Office will be responsible for the administrative work in making the per capita distribution.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that a plan for the use of approximately $750,000 awarded by the Indian Claims Commission to the Zia, Jemez and Santa Ana Pueblos is being published in the Federal Register. The award represents payment for land in central New Mexico taken from the Pueblos from 1905 to 1936.

According to the plan, approved by Congress and made effective June 17, 1975, the funds will be equally divided between the three Pueblos.

There will be no per capita payments to individuals in any of the three Pueblos. Rather the funds will be invested by the tribal governing bodies for social and economic development purposes, including the acquisition of land.

The plan permits the use of principal funds, as well as investment income, for tribal purposes.

Edward McCabe, Jr., a member of the Navajo Tribe, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Shiprock Agency in northwestern New Mexico. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced that the appointment is effective immediately.

McCabe, 54, has been Senior Program Director for the School of Business at the University of New Mexico. He has in the past served as Treasurer, Acting General Manager of the Utility Division and Director of Administration for the Navajo Tribe.

A veteran of World War II, McCabe has a B.S. degree from Tulsa University and an M.Ed. in Education Administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that two contracts totaling more than $6.2 million for the construction of roads serving members of the Navajo Indian Tribe were awarded July 22.

A contract with Nielsons, Inc., of Dolores, Colo., calls for the construction of 16.24 miles of hot bituminous concrete surfacing on a previously constructed roadbed between Rough Rock, Ariz., and the Arizona State Highway 63 at Many Farms, Ariz.

The Rough Rock Community has now only a dirt road connection with the highway.

The amount of this contract is $2,234,281. Five other bids running - as high as $2.83 million were received.

The other contract, with Owl Constructors of Compton, Calif., provides for open graded emulsified asphalt pavement and turf establishment on 22.36 miles of road from Pueblo Pintado to the McKinley-Sandoval County Line Highway in the State of New Mexico.

This project will complete work on Navajo Route N9 and will provide an all-weather highway from Interstate 40 at Thoreau to Cuba, New Mexico.

The amount of this contract is $4,020,127. The Bureau of Indian Affairs received three other bids ranging up to $4.83 million.

A plan for the use of $7 million awarded to the Jicarilla Apache Indian Tribe by the Indian Claims Commission is being published in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The award represents payment for claims of the Jicarilla Apache Tribe against the United States for the general accounting of tribal funds and properties which the Federal Government controlled and managed since the last century.

According to the plan, approved by Congress and made effective July 8, 1975, all of the funds, after the deduction of legal expenses, will be used for programs benefitting the tribe as a whole.

Four million dollars will be utilized to establish a Jicarilla Tribal investment program. Other uses will be $235,000 for community development and improvements; $1,031,000 for capital development and investments; $1,000,000 for land acquisitions and $34,000 for contingency costs. Accrued interest and investment income will be added to these principal amounts.

The reservation is located in Rio Arriba and Sandoval Counties in New Mexico. Tribal headquarters are at Dulce, New Mexico.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that John Buffalohorn, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Tribe has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Fort Totten Agency in North Dakota.

The agency serves the Devils Lake Sioux Tribe.

Buffalohorn has been the Administrative Manager of the Fort Peck Agency, Poplar, and Montana.

A graduate of the Haskell Indian Institute, Buffalohorn is a Korean War Army veteran. He has worked 21 years for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. For nearly six years, prior to going to Fort Peck, he was the Property and Supply Officer at the Turtle Mountain Agency at Belcourt, North Dakota.