The administration of the Intermountain Indian School at Brigham City, Utah, has been transferred to the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Phoenix Area Office, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.
The school, a residential high school, was formerly under the jurisdiction of the Navajo Area Office.
The administrative transfer reflects a change in the nature of the school, Commissioner Thompson said.
Intermountain was founded in the early 1950's to meet the need of over-age Navajo Indian students involved in a post-World-War-II educational boom on that reservation. It became, over the years, the largest high school in the BIA educational system, serving only Navajo students.
As additional school facilities were developed on the Navajo Reservation, the Navajo's need for this off-reservation school decreased.
In 1973 enrollment at the school was opened on a trial basis to members of other tribes. The school, which is in the geographical jurisdiction of the Phoenix Area Office, is being continued as an intertribal school.
The Navajo Area Office serves only the Navajo Tribe, the largest tribe in the Nation whose reservation embraces some 25,000 square miles in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
