The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced the recent reassignment of three officials to posts in its field installations.
Fred H. Massey, Assistant Commissioner in the Bureau's Washington, D.C., central office, has been temporarily assigned as acting area director for the Bureau's Anadarko, Okla., area office. He will fill the post left vacant by the assignment of Leslie P. Towle, former area director, to the Portland, Ore., area office. The assignment, which is for an indefinite period, became effective January 29.
Massey, a native of Oklahoma and a member of the Choctaw Tribe, has been with the Bureau of Indian Affairs since 1936, except for two years of military service. He attended Oklahoma schools and Haskell Institute, at Lawrence, Kan., where he graduated in 1935.
He has served in various administrative capacities. Prior to his appointment as Assistant Commissioner he was chief of the budget and finance branch in the Washington central office.
Towle, who became a Special Field Representative of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the Portland office, effective January 15, had been Area Director at Anadarko since August 1963.
Towle joined the Bureau as an auditor accountant at Billings, Mont., in 1933 and has held progressively responsible assignments in Montana, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington, D.C. Prior to his recent service in Oklahoma, he was superintendent of the Pine Ridge, S. Dak., (Sioux) agency for six years. He was born at Littleport, Iowa, and graduated from the University of Iowa in 1922.
The Bureau announced the transfer of Stephen W. Smith from the Juneau, Alaska, office to fill the post of assistant area director at Anadarko, vacant since the' retirement of Harry L. Gardner last December.
Smith is a native of Casper, Wyo., and began his Bureau career in 1937 at the Ft. Washakie, Wyo. (Shoshone) agency. He has since served in administrative positions in Arizona and Alaska. In December, 1962 he was promoted to the post of Assistant Area Director for Administration in the Juneau office, a position he held until his present reassignment, effective January 29.
