Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today announced an administrative realignment in the Bureau of Indian Affairs which will bring the Cherokee Agency, Cherokee, N. C., on December 1, under direct supervision of the central office in Washington, D. C.
The North Carolina agency, which has been under direction of the area office at Minneapolis, Minn., for the past four years, is the closest of all Indian Bureau field offices to the Nation's capital. Because of this proximity and its comparative remoteness from area offices, the agency is being brought directly under Washington office supervision.
In the move Joe Jennings, superintendent of the Cherokee Agency, will transfer to the Washington office as a member of the program coordinating staff. William E. Ensor, Jr., administrative officer at Cherokee, will take over local supervision of the agency as acting superintendent.
In his new post in Washington Mr. Jennings will join a staff group which has the task of developing cooperatively with the various Indian tribes programs designed to promote their economic and social advancement and to prepare them for eventual independence of Federal supervision.
Apart from the shift in supervision from Minneapolis to Washington, no other fundamental change in the status of the Cherokee Agency is contemplated.
Mr. Jennings, a veteran of 23 years with the Indian Bureau, has been superintendent at Cherokee since 1946. He entered the Indian Service in 1931 as superintendent of schools at Pine Ridge Agency, S. Dak., and later was named superintendent of all Bureau schools in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa. In 1939 he transferred to the central office and was given general supervision over Bureau schools in the southeastern area. After; six years in this position he was shifted to the Cherokee Agency in 1945 as acting superintendent and one year later was named superintendent. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and holds a Ph. D. from George Peabody College, Nashville, Tenn.
Mr. Ensor has been administrative officer at Cherokee for the past nine years and has been an employee of that agency since 1929. He entered the Indian Service in 1928 as assistant clerk at Tuba City, Ariz.
