OPA

Timber sales on Indian owned land reached a record high of $26.7 million in calendar year 1968, topping a stumpage receipts of the previous year by almost $8.8 million, the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs announced.

Although the amount of timber harvested also reached a record 998 million board feet -- 98 million board feet over 1967 Bureau officials said rapidly rising timber prices were largely responsible for the income increase.

In addition to cash receipts, Indians cut more than 92 million board feet of timber for home and farm use and for fuel.

The increased level of Indian timber harvest provided about 7,000 year-long jobs in logging and milling and more than 4,700 jobs in supporting and service employment, with combined wages of about $50 million annually.

Plans are now under way to increase Indian timber sales, Bureau officials said, to help ease the present log shortage and to further increase Indian stumpage income and employment.

Several Indian tribes are taking an increased role in developing the industrial and business opportunities supported by their timber harvests. Wood processing plants have been installed by the Navajo and Jicarilla Apache Tribes in New Mexico, the White Mountain Apache in Arizona, Warm Springs in Oregon, and Red Lake Chippewas in Minnesota, with small mills located on a number of other reservations. Individual Indians are also controlling an increasing number of logging enterprises.

Indian forests are managed on a sustained-yield basis, so that the resource will be continually productive.

The Adoption Resource Exchange of North America (ARENA), placed 89 Indian children out of 119 registered with it in 1968, reports the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Department of the Interior. The BIA works closely with the national organization.

Placement was pending at the end of 1968 for most of the remaining 30 Indian children.

The 89 children ranged in age from birth to 13 years. Of the total, 47 were infants, 23 were pre-school age, and 19 were school-age. Fifty-four of the children were boys, 35 were girls. There were eight sibling groups placed, including three from one family.

The children placed for adoption carne from 13 states, including 37 from Arizona; 11 from Wisconsin; 10 from California; seven from Nevada, and seven from South Dakota.

A total of 21 states provided adoptive parents, including 17 from New York; Pennsylvania, 11; Illinois, 10; Indiana, eight; Missouri, seven; Massachusetts, six, and Delaware, five.

According to Bureau officials, many of the families interested in adopting Indian children claimed some Indian heritage themselves. Taking pride in their Indian ancestry, they are interested in learning all about the child's tribe, and strive to keep the child informed and proud of his Indian background.

At present, ARENA has 145 families registered, waiting for Indian children. The ARENA project is conducted through the Child Welfare League, 44 East 23 Street, New York, New York 10010.

The nomination of Harrison Loesch, a Montrose, Colo., lawyer specializing in land and water law, to the post of Assistant Secretary for Public Land management in the Department of the Interior was announced today.

The announcement, on behalf of President Nixon, was made by Interior Secretary Walter J. Hickel.

Loesch, 53, has lived in Western Colorado most of his life. As a practicing attorney, he has had extensive experience with Interior Department agencies including the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U. S. Geological Survey. He is also intimately familiar with the regulations and procedures of the Taylor Grazing Act.

The new assistant secretary-nominee holds a bachelor of arts degree from Colorado College, and a law degree from Yale University. He has also studied at Denver University Law School.

He was discharged from the U. S. Army as a major in 1945 after serving in the European Theater.

Since 1961 he has worked with the Montrose law firm of Loesch, Kreidler and Durham, and he is a past president of the Colorado Bar Association.

Loesch and his wife, the former Louise Mills, have one son, Jeffrey, 22, in the Peace Corps.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert L. Bennett announced today that Barney Old Coyote, Interior Department Job Corps Conservation Center Coordinator since December 1964, has returned to the Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs as Assistant Director of its Sacramento, Calif., Area Office.

"Mr. Old Coyote has demonstrated his ability to work effectively and harmoniously with the Indian people," Bennett said, "and I know he will continue this record in California."

Old Coyote, 45, is a Crow Indian from St. Xavier, Mont. He joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1948 as a clerk-typist at Crow Agency, Mont., and held positions of increasing responsibility at several western reservations. He was Sub-agency Superintendent at Box Elder, Mont., when he was named to his present position in the Department.

Last year Old Coyote received the Department of the Interior Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor the department bestows, for outstanding performance as Job Corps Coordinator.

Old Coyote attended elementary and high schools in Hardin, Mont.; Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kan.; and Morningside College, Sioux City, Iowa. He served in the Army Air Force during World War II as an aerial engineer-gunner, flying 50 missions in the European and Mediterranean Theaters.

He will succeed Marvin Ripke, who retired January 11.

Awards totaling about $36 million were granted 13 American Indian groups by judgments of the Indian Claims Commission during 1968, the Bureau of Indian Affairs reported today.

Congress has appropriated funds for $30.6 million of the total granted. The appropriated funds earn interest for the tribes involved while the funds are on deposit to their credit.

The, Indian Claims Commission was established iii 1946 as an independent agency by Act of Congress. It hears and determines the claims of tribes and other identi­fiable groups of American Indians living in the United States. In 1967 its membership was expanded from three to five.

The present commissioners are John T. Vance, Richard W. Yarborough, Jerome K. Kuykendall, Margaret H. Pierce and Theodore R. McKeldin.

Most of the Indian Claims filed with the commission are for fair value of 1ndian lands ceded to the United States or taken by the Government in the past. Increasingly, the funds received through judgments are now being invested by the tribes for projects to improve the social and economic conditions of their people.

Typical projects include scholarships for the education of Indian youth, social services for reservation dwellers, construction of community centers and funding of community development projects, and tribal enterprises including recreational tourism development, industrial parks and other projects designed to bring new sources of income and employment to the Indians.

Awards granted to the tribes in 1968 by the Indian Claims Commission included:

A roll to determine which Indians in California are eligible to share in two awards totaling $30 million in land claims funds is being prepared by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Area Office in Sacramento, according to Robert L. Bennett, Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

The money comes from awards in settlement of two Indian claims against the United States Government for approximately 65 mi11iQn acres of California land taken from the Indians without compensation.

Indians who believe they are eligible to share in the awards, including those on the 1950 roll, may obtain application forms and instructions from the Area Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Sacramento, Area Office, 2800 Cottage Way, Sacramento, Calif., 95825, Bennett said.

Applications must be filed with the Area Director by the close of business on Sept. 22, 1969. Applications must be filed by everyone wishing to be enrolled.

Bennett emphasized that there is no fee for any part of the application process. Those who may be eligible to share in the awards are Indians:

1. Whose name or the name of a lineal or collateral relative appears to any of the approved rolls heretofore prepared under the Act of May 18, 1928 (45 Stat. 602) and its amendments.

2. Who can establish lineal or collateral relationship to an Indian who resided in California on June 1, 1852.

3. Who were born on or before and were living on Sept. 21, 1968.

The funds of a 1944 award will be divided equally among those eligible when the roll is completed. The funds of a 1964 award will be divided equally among those on the completed ro1i, except those persons whose ancestry is derived solely from one or more of the following groups, and persons of mixed ancestry who elect to share in any award made by the Indian Claims Commission to the following groups: Northern Paiute, Southern Paiute, Mohave, Quechan (Yuma), Chemehuevi, Shoshone, Washoe, Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin Band of Snake Indians.

Bennett noted that current residence in California is not a requirement and eligible California Indians will be found in "practically every State of the Union."

A Family Employment Training Center, the first established and directed by an all-Indian corporation, will open this fall at Bismarck, N.D.

Contracts for the project are being signed at the site of the Center today.

The United Tribes of North Dakota Development Corporation, whose membership includes all the tribes of North Dakota, announced that it will award the contract for the operation of the Center to Bendix Field Engineering, Corporation, Owings Mills, Md., a subsidiary of The Bendix Corporation.

The Indian tribes of North Dakota initiated the proposal for the training center when the Lewis and Clark Job Corps Training Center at Bismarck was closed.

The Development Corporation represents the Standing Rock and Fort Totten Sioux, the Turtle Mountain Chippewa and the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold Gros Ventre (Hidatsa), Arikara, and Mandan. Their enterprise represents one of the largest contracts with an Indian group ever negotiated by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. The contract provides for Federal funding totaling $1,080,000 for the first year of operations.

Secretary of the Interior Walter J. Hickel termed the new contract a "breakthrough in the exciting task of bringing Indian and Alaska Native leadership to the fore in creating programs that are not simply designed for Indians, but programs designed EY Indians."

"President Nixon stated last fall that in this Administration Indians' 'participation in planning their own destiny will actively be encouraged.' We have now begun a major venture in Indian direction of Indian programs. The businesslike manner in which the United Tribes have approached this undertaking gives me great confidence that they will carry it forward for the benefit of the Indian people in the eight states it will serve," he said.

Under the Family Training Center concept an entire family receives an education -- the basic three R's related to the vocation the trainee picks, vocational training, and a grounding in living in urban areas -- the places where most of the jobs are.

Both mother and father receive job training. The Center provides child care for young children while older brothers and sisters are enrolled in local schools. All members of the family receive counseling and guidance on an individual basis as needed during the transition from one way of life to another.

Initial enrollment at the Center will be 25 families, 10 solo parents, 50 single men and 50 single women. The Center will serve 36 reservations in eight states -- North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

While similar centers are being operated under contract for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Madera, Calif., and Roswell, N.M., this is the first center directed by those it serves.

Funds for the Center, to be called the United Tribes Employment Training Center, will come from the Department of Labor and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A special $700,000 appropriation approved by the last Congress provided for the conversion of the Job Corps Center into a family training center. The Office of Economic Opportunity 'donated much of the Center's equipment to the new facility.

The Indian leaders on the corporation board of directors deliberated carefully before choosing a subcontractor to run the Center to make sure that the program will meet the needs of Indian trainee families, and that there will be continuing close coordination between the corporation and the subcontractor.

In May Center site operation discussions the corporation and 16 potential subcontractors visited the to discuss and refine proposals and concepts for the Center's Subcontractors' plans and concepts were explored in detailed before the subcontract was awarded.

Thirty-three Indian high school students are among 700 youngsters from all over the country, representing the National Association of Student Councils in a leadership workshop scheduled June 16 through June 30, in the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore areas.

The workshop is sponsored annually by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, but this is the first time that Indian students have been involved, the result of a working agreement recently completed between the Principals' group and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Indian tribes represented by the Indians include Navajo, Apache, Crow, Papago, Yakima, Gros Ventre, Choctaw, Cherokee, Pueblo, and Sioux. Alaska Natives will be represented by an Eskimo.

The students home residences range from Point Barrow, Alaska through Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, the Dakotas, Oklahoma and Mississippi.

For the Indian students the first week has included an orientation program in Washington about the Workshops, about the Nation's capital, and Government generally.

They have met with various Congressmen, including members of the Indian Affairs Committees, and visited the Senate Office Building.

Another highlight of the week included a special luncheon given for them Wednesday, June 18, at the National Educational Association headquarters, which Assistant Secretary of the Interior Harrison Loesch attended.

For the second week of the Workshop, beginning June 23 at Baltimore's Perry Hall High School, the Indians will join their counterparts from non-Indian schools.

All students are officers of the student bodies of their schools.

Assistant BIA Commissioner Charles N. Zellers, who heads up the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Education Office, will be the keynote speaker on June 23, stressing the importance of student involvement in the total operation of the school system.

Following the adjournment of the Conference June 26 the Indian students will return to Washington for a Friday Seminar on Federal, local and school government, a Saturday picnic in Rock Creek park, and a Sunday baseball game, before returning to their homes

A series of three prize-winning travel posters designed by American Indian art students are now available for sale to Indian tribes and Indian-interest organizations and through them to the general public, it was announced today.

Priced at $1.75 each, subjects include a classic Katchina figure; a black and white Indian on a horse against a brilliant yellow and range background; and a psychedelic design.

All three posters carry the theme, "Discover America with the First Americans," an invitation to visit Indian reservations at vacation time.

Designers of the posters are students at the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico. They are: Delbridge Honanie, Hopi; Joe Powskey, Hualapai-Hopi, and Ben Martinez Navajo.

The contest was co-sponsored by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and ARROW, Inc., an Indian-interest organization with headquarters in Washington, D.C.

G. H. & E. Freydberg Co., a New York manufacturer of girls' dresses, advanced the funds for printing the posters with the stipulation that all profits would go into scholarships for Indian students.

Indian tribes and Indian-interest organizations may purchase the posters for resale. Inquiries should be addressed to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, 1951 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20242.

The general public may order posters from the American Indian Society of Washington, 519 5th St. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. Add 25¢ to cover postage and handling.

Robert L. Bennett, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, has announced the appointment of Arthur O. Allen, a general engineer in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as Assistant Commissioner for Engineering. Allen succeeds Fred M. Haverland, who retired January 11.

Allen was born at Martin, S. D and is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. He was graduated from. Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kan. in 1927 and joined the Bureau as an assistant foreman at Muskogee, Okla., a position he held until 1935 when he was named an associate architectural engineer in the Bureau's central office in Washington.

Between that time and the present Allen has served in the following positions: assistant director of construction, senior administrative analyst, construction management engineer, general engineer and supervisory general engineer. During this time he received four award for outstanding performance. He has served on the Department of the Interior's Board of Contract Appeals.

Allen earned a Bachelor of Laws Degree at Southeastern University, Washington, D.C., and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. Bennett noted that Allen has had the responsibility for the development and administration of the Bureau's construction contracting policies and procedures and has "demonstrated proven administrative ability in the field of engineering."

Allen will head the Bureau's Division of Engineering, which has responsibility for approving and supervising design, contracting, construction and maintenance of Bureau buildings and road.