OPA

A new industry to employ Navajo Indians is being established in the former administration building of the Bureau of Reclamation in Page, Ariz., and Secretary-of the Interior Stewart L. Udall reported today.

Reclamation transferred the building to the Bureau of Indian Affairs as it is no longer needed for Reclamation's activities. The building was the center of activity at Page during construction of the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River.

Under a $27,568 on-the-job training contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, EPt-Vostron of Anaheim, Calif., will use about half of the 12,500 square foot building as an electronic assembly plant and later may use more of the structure. The company is providing its own financing and machinery.

Initially, 28 Navajos will be trained and employed by EPI-Vostron. Employment is expected to expand to as many as 60 Navajos during the first year of operations. Two young Navajo men are employed by EPI-Vostron and undergoing training so that they can function as lead men at the company's facility in Page when it becomes operational. The company was attracted to a Navajo Reservation location by publicity on the decision of General Dynamics Corp. to establish a missile components manufacturing facility at Fort Defiance.

Through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, arrangements were made for a meeting with tribal officials. Raymond Nakai, Navajo Tribal Chairman, sent a personal representative to Anaheim to negotiate with company officials.

Navajo Indians are engaged in similar employment in the Fairchild Semiconductor plant at Shiprock, N. M.

Reclamation transferred the building for projected industrial use under its policy of encouraging the early conversion of government towns, established in connection with construction projects, into self-sufficient communities.

Establishment of such industries in Page, and the benefits resulting from the payrolls, are expected to help form a sound basis for transition of the community from government town to municipal status. In a further effort to stimulate such conversion, the Bureau of Reclamation recently contracted with Arizona State University for a study of problems involved in incorporation. The report and A.S.U. recommendations are expected by December, 1967.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today submission to Congress of a proposed bill to authorize disposition of close to $4 million to pay off an Indian Claims Commission judgment to the Creek Nation of Indians.

In September 1962, the Commission awarded $3,913,000 to the Oklahoma Creeks and to the Eastern Creeks, a group scattered throughout areas east of the Mississippi River.

Congress appropriated the money in 1965, and it has been drawing interest while details of the necessary legislation for disposition were worked out. Still to be determined are the final amounts of some costs to be paid from the judgment funds.

The award represents payment for almost 9 million acres of land in Alabama and Georgia, ceded under an 1814 treaty, when the United States wished to move the Creeks west of the Mississippi. As the move was voluntary, those Indians who wanted to stay were given patent to lands in return for territorial rights.

The Oklahoma Creeks moved into the "Indian Territory" west of the Mississippi and were dealt with as a nation with a principal chief, until the area became a state in 1907, and a limited tribal organization continues to function. Blood descendants of these Oklahoma Creeks are today estimated to total between 35,000 and 40,000.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Creeks became citizens of the United States, many descendants making their homes in southern Alabama, Florida and Mississippi. Upwards of 10,000 persons are believed able to trace their ancestry to this group.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett again underscored an announcement he made late last year that no roll can be prepared until Congress authorizes such action. He emphasized that there will be no charge for such enrollments.

The proposed legislation calls for preparation of a current roll of lineal descendants of the Creek Nation as it existed in 1814 and provides for per capita payments to such individuals.

The Eastern Creeks in establishing eligibility would be obliged to depend on various records required by the Federal Government which are known to be official and authentic, and some of these may be difficult to obtain, it was pointed out to Congress. Few such problems are anticipated with the Oklahoma Creeks, whose records were kept by the Government, including an official, final roll in 1907.

William B. Benge, Chief of the Branch of Law and Order, Bureau of Indian Affairs, has been given a temporary assignment as Special Liaison Representative to the Seneca Indian Tribe of Western New York, Commissioner Robert L. Bennett announced today.

Bennett said that Benge's appointment is effective immediately and is expected to last only a few months while a successor is being chosen for Sidney M. Carney, who has been named BIA Area Director for the Anadarko (Okla.) Area.

Benge, a member of the Cherokee Tribe, began his service with the Bureau in 1934 as a clerk at the Turtle Mountain, N. D. Agency.

From 1946 to 1949 he was Superintendent of the New York Agency, which was abolished in 1949 when responsibility for Indian affairs was turned over to the State. Federal contact was re-estab1ished when Carney was sent to assist the Senecas with a rehabilitation program after one third of one of their reservations was taken for the new Kinzua Dam Reservoir.

Ground has been broken for the AMI-Zuni Computer Parts Plant, the first factory on the new B1ackrock Industrial Park of the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico, which will employ 100 Zuni Indians by the year's end.

The groundbreaking took place August 23, exactly three months from the day officials of the parent company, Aircraft Mechanics, Inc. of Colorado Springs, Colo., first set foot on the reservation.

The plant is being built by the tribe with tribal funds and a loan from the Bureau of Indian Affairs' revolving loan fund. It will be leased to the computer company. The industrial complex is being created by the tribe with $268,000 in funds obtained through Economic Development Administration grants and loans and construction funds from the Federal Water pollution Control Administration. The water pollution control funds will be used to build adequate sewage facilities for the complex at a total cost of $79,000, of which $23,700 is Federal money.

The tribe is actively seeking other industrial and commercial tenants for the park, located just east of the Pueblo.

Twenty Zunis, both men and women, have been picked for two-week training sessions at Colorado Springs to learn the intricate art of assembling computer memory cores, made of tiny wires woven through minute silicon "donuts."

The work is so precise and the materials so small that the final operations must be performed with the aid of high powered microscopes.

Aircraft Mechanics officials say they are well pleased with the aptitudes displayed by the first trainees and feel that the "quality and productivity" of the Zuni labor force will be a decided advantage in a highly competitive industry. They said there is a good possibility that operations may be expanded and broadened in future months.

The officials also complimented the tribe and representatives of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, New Mexico Emp10yement and Security Commission, Economic Development Administration and Public Health Service for the speed with which construction and training details were completed.

An agreement designed to speed the creation of a self-sustaining Alaskan reindeer industry has been signed by the Interior Department's Bureaus of Indian Affairs and Land Management and the State of Alaska, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

The agreement, Udall said, sets forth areas of responsibility in "a united effort to improve the economic base for the Native peoples of Alaska by making the reindeer industry a continuing and increasing source of jobs and income."

Under the agreement's terms, all parties will work to encourage the Northwest Alaska Reindeer Herders Association to develop the reindeer industry.

The BIA will be responsible for the promotion and development of the ranching aspects of the program, until Native leadership develops skills to assume this responsibility.

The BLM will be responsible for the management of the habitat and for investigating the potential of new areas for grazing, consistent with the principles of multiple use.

The State of Alaska will assume the responsibility for advice, guidance and promotion of the slaughtering, processing and marketing phases of the industry.

The agreement calls for the establishment of an Alaska Reindeer Industry Advisory Committee of four members, one from each of the signatories plus the Herders Association. The Committee will provide general direction, supervision and leadership in the reindeer improvement program.

At present there are about 42,000 reindeer in 16 private and two government Alaskan herds. Not native to North America, reindeer were introduced to Alaska around the turn of the century. Under almost ideal conditions the herd increased to more than 630,000 by 1932. However, because of a depression caused falling market, over-grazing, inadequate herding, predator increase, losses due to straying off with closely related caribou herds, several severe winters in the late 1930's and the diversion of interest caused by World War II, the total number was reduced to a low of 26,000 in 1950.

All parties to the agreement see potential for an increased reindeer development in expanding demands for red meat protein in this country and the Far East. The Alaskan range land now available for use can support an estimated 500,000 reindeer.

The maximum development of Indian economic, industrial and employment potential on a nationwide basis, and the problems involved, will be considered at a meeting sponsored by the Department of ~he Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs in Oklahoma late this month.

Officials from the Bureau's 11 area offices in the Midwest, West and Alaska and the Washington headquarters will meet with business and industrial leaders and representatives of the Economic Development Administration and Small Business Administration.

George E. Schmidt, chief of the Bureau's branch of industrial development, which is conducting the conference, said:

"All participants are supporting the tribal effort, and give guidance and support to tribal programs. We are aiming toward utilization of all opportunities and integration of every effort to bring about maximum development of the reservations.”

More than 50 people are expected to attend the meeting September' 26, 27, and 28 at Wagoner, Okla.

Speakers other than Federal officials will include: Governor Dewey Bartlett of Oklahoma; Richard Preston of Boston, executive director of the American Industrial Development Council; H. H. Mobley, executive vice president of Quality Courts Motels, Inc., Daytona Beach, Fla.; Ed Daley, vice president of the Public Service Company, Tulsa, Okla.; Arthur R. Fichter, manager of the Business Analysis Division of Amphenol Corp., Chicago; and Bud Heiser, director of planning in the Oklahoma Industrial and Park Department, Oklahoma City.

Federal officials who will speak include George W. Hubley, Jr., the new BIA assistant commissioner for economic development; Mr. Schmidt; Murray W. Kramer, director of office management assistance in the Small Business Administration; Coleman Stein, director of the office of business management in the Economic Development Administration; and a number of BIA officials.

A $2,187,000 contract for school facilities construction at Santa Rosa, on the Papago Reservation in Southern Arizona, has been awarded to the F. H. Antrim Construction Co., of Phoenix, Ariz., the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

The contract calls for the construction of a 12-classroom school with multipurpose building, instructional materials center and administrative offices; a 360-pupil kitchen-dining hall; a 160-pupil dormitory; a plant management building with a fire truck garage; a mechanical equipment building and employee quarters. Related work includes water and sewerage utilities and extensions, a 150,000 gallon elevated water storage tank, sewer lagoon, site grading, drives, walks, curbing, gutters and paving.

The construction site will be approximately 4.5 miles from the present school location, which does not have enough land for expansion purposes. The existing dormitory will be converted to employees' quarters and the kitchen-dining building will be remodeled to provide a recreation facility.

This work, when complete, will provide modern school facilities for 160 boarding and 200 day pupils. Seven higher bids, ranging from $2,279,881 to $2,387,000 were received.

A coordinated effort to develop more effective leadership for Indian community development has been launched by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Commissioner Robert Lo Bennett said today.

"We hope th4t the group spirit and cultural strengths which have enabled many Indian groups to survive and maintain their identity against tremendous odds may be translated into new community actions which can generate the social and economic progress necessary to bring Indians into their rightful place in American society." Bennett said.

To begin this concerted effort he said, two seminars on extensive community development have been conducted for the BIA at the Southwest Center for Human relations and Studies at the University of Oklahoma at Norman.

The two seminars one in September and the other this month, were designed to give BIA officials and representatives of cooperating agencies a broad perspective on both the problems of Indian community development and new approaches to finding their solutions.

"It is obvious that many of our programs have been and are community development programs. II Bennett said. "But we hope that by a careful analysis effectiveness and goals we can make all these programs work together for the development of the total community.”

Great progress has been made in recent years in the development of local leadership," he said. "This growing resource must operate in the most efficient manner possible - thus our concern that all who would assist India-risen see' the forest as well as the trees."

The seminars. Directed by Dr. Edward Ho Spicer of the University of Arizona, are the Bureaus first effort to bring its leadership together for intensive study and discussion of the community development problems and procedure so Participants included officials from the BIA Central Office in Washington and from Area offices throughout Indian' country including Alaska.

Follow-up meetings will be held in the near future in various areas and will involve tribal leadership as well as the participation of other Federal agencies and groups interested in Indian affairs.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today announced appointment of Eugene W. Barrett, Agricultural Extension Officer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to superintendency of the Seminole Agency, Hollywood, Fla.

Barrett brings to his new post a varied background as a ranger, conservationist and agricultural extension officer. His most recent assignment has been at BIA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The new superintendent, 60, was born in Billings, Mont. He has had 27 years’ experience in Government service that began soon after his graduation with a B.S. in Forestry from the University of Montana.

From seasonal appointments as fire guard and forest guard with the Forest Service, he went on to the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a junior range examiner at the Blackfeet Agency in Montana. He advanced to range supervisor, forest supervisor, conservationist, and land operations officer, a process that took him to a number of Indian reservations in Oregon, California, Montana and North Dakota.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett, who recommended the appointment, pointed out that Barrett's performance ratings have been consistently excellent, with commendatory remarks about his ability, initiative, creativity, and his cooperation with other agencies.

"Such a background will be of particular benefit to the Seminole people," Bennett said, "as they work to develop the full potential of their natural resources, to capitalize on their human resources in industrial and commercial development with resulting increases in tribal income, and to preserve the rich ecology of their reservation."

Barrett succeeds Reginald W. Quinn, who is retiring from Government service

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is learning that one of the best ways to get work done on reservations and for Indian tribes is to have the Indians do it themselves, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall said today.

Increasingly Indian contractors are getting a growing variety of contracts. These result in more employment for Indians, savings for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and newly developed skills for tribal members, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett reported to the Secretary.

"More and more, the public is hearing of these success stories, Indian style," Bennett said. "'Indian style,' because most of them mean that many Indians can continue to stay on reservations while earning a living comparable to that available in the outside world.

"And for many an Indian, that is success: To live on the land he was born to, while offering his children and his children's children the economic and social self-reliance that can preserve ancient and proud cultures. For others, employment assistance in urban areas opens the way to still another world."

Not long ago, Domingo Montoya, chairman of the All-Indian Pueblo Council at Albuquerque, N.M., signed a $6,752 contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Bureau needed a comprehensive school census of the area. Instead of bring­ing in BIA employees to do the job, it contracted the work to the Indians themselves. The contract included transportation for the census takers, train­ing of census people, 1,520-man-hours for enumerators to go to 18 pueblos and two Navajo communities, and 625-man-hours for two clerks to assemble the results.

The Indian census enumerators turned up with discrepancies in the old census office figures, and "performed in an efficient and exemplary manner," according to BIA officials. In addition, the council had money in the bank and 39 Indians had been given needed summer employment as well as valuable experience which they could later use in other Bureau assignments.

This is a small but important example of new BIA planning -- a plan designed to more and more put Indians in charge of their own programs.

The Bureau has contracted work to Indians, and encouraged them also to initiate and expand their own programs.

This summer, the Choctaw Tribe of Mississippi contracted to furnish the labor for 25 housing units a $62,000 project. This included carpenters, electricians, metal workers, plumbers, and office help, most of them Indians. In Oregon, the Warm Springs Tribes took over the repair of flood damage under a $170,000 contract -- "a major and outstanding project," according to BIA officials.

These projects, too, became a source of income, experience and renewed confidence to the Indians, instead of letting them stand by while the white man and his know-how moved in to do the Indians' work for them.

These instances reveal the extent and depth to which the heretofore "protected" Indian is gradually taking over the management of his own affairs -- plunging, with only an assist from the Bureau, into new responsi­bilities, new jobs and new attitudes, Bennett said.

Thousands of Indian people are being put to work, the Bureau is saving money by accepting Indian bids, and thousands more Indians are being trained in skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled jobs right on their own reservations.

As a side result, tribal units find themselves forming organizational patterns of command and communication to take immediate advantage of project opportunity openings as they occur. This is important, for many government agencies have funds available to help Indians. These include the Office of Economic Opportunity; Departments of Labor; Health, Education, and Welfare; Agriculture; Housing and Urban Development; and Commerce. The tribes must be ready with the project and method of implementing it.

And there is much to be done. For example reservation roads must be improved to allow for increased tourist travel, better communication, and expanded transport services.

The Phoenix, Ariz., area office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs has contracted with Indian tribes or individuals for $267,000 worth of work since last January, two-thirds of it already completed. There were no Indian tribes within the area office's jurisdiction which had the equipment, so nearby Navajos were called upon for equipment rental, material trucking, and road building.

The Bureau found the Navajos to be highly qualified for these operations.

Indian credit programs are also being expanded and entire tribal units set up to handle the paper work without involving the Bureau. And the Red Lake Chippewas of Minnesota have the added distinction of having established their own credit sources without having to fall back on government support.

Recently, the Zuni Tribe acquired valuable experience in bidding, performing under contract, financing and administering a $7,500 program for a dwarf mistletoe pest control project which was sponsored by the Department of Agriculture. The Zunis organized the Forest Improvement Enterprise and a contract was executed to do the work on 500 acres of infested reservation pine.

The enterprise employed 10 laborers and supervisor, all Zunis. In order to get working capital, the enterprise executed a 90-day loan of $4,000 and paid it back in 22 days. The Indians successfully completed the project in 31 working days, and are now preparing to bid on similar projects.

The timber harvest on Indian lands is estimated to support 8,050 jobs by 1973, yielding $19.8 million annually in stumpage and $40.4 million in wages. Obviously, many Indian tribes have a vested interest in not only good conservation practices, but the training of other Indians for the work involved.

For example, the White Mountain Apache Tribe took on a contract through the Bureau's Branch of Forestry for the personnel necessary to protect 1.5 million acres of forest and range resources. The contract was for $66,000 and provided about JO Indians with summer employment in fire protection, as well as look-out and fire warehouse experience. These Apaches, now well-experienced in firefighting, travel to battle over 250 fires in western states annually.

The Consolidated Ute Agency in Colorado assigned various jobs to Indians during Fiscal 1967, including re-roofing on buildings, storm damage repairs and floor coverings -- a total of $16,500. On North Carolina's Cherokee Reservation, the tribe handles the school bus contract and the hot lunch program. And at Rosebud, S.D., the Rosebud Sioux Tribe participated in BIA's portion of a $1.9 million housing project by providing equipment, transportation and materials

for prefabrication homes on their own reservation. The tribe's share of the contract, $137,340, provided jobs and new insights into business operations.