The Department of the Interior announced today the transfer of Homer M. Gilliland, superintendent of the Fort Berthold Indian Agency at New Town, N. Dak., for the past two and a half years, to the post of superintendent at the Colorado River Agency, Parker, Ariz.
Gilliland succeeds John C. Dibbern, who has headed the Colorado River Agency for the past six years and is now moving to the Indian Bureau's area office at a11up, N. Mex., as assistant area director for economic development.
Before moving to Fort Berthold as superintendent in the fall of 1960, Gilliland served for six years at Colorado River first as soil conservationist and later as agency land operations officer. From 1943 to 1954, he worked as principa1- teacher and later soil conservationist at the Cherokee Agency in North Carolina. He was born at Tremont, Miss., in 1912 and has an agricultural degree from Mississippi State College. Before joining the Bureau, he worked as a public school teacher and in private industry in Mississippi.
Born at Los Angeles in 1919, Dibbern had 12 years experience in teaching and in range jobs with the Soil Conservation Service and the Forest Service before joining the Indian Bureau as range conservationist at Sells, Ariz., in 1950. After four years in this position, he was appointed land operations officer at Whiteriver, Ariz., and one year later moved to the Bureau's Washington office as program officer. In 1956 he was designated assistant to the Assistant Commissioner for Resources and one year later was given the appointment as Colorado River superintendent. He holds a doctor's degree in plant ecology received from the University of Chicago in 1947.
