Appointment of James E. Hawkins, former executive director of the Alaska Rural Development Board, as Area Director at Juneau for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in charge of its Alaskan operations, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton.
He succeeds William H. Olsen, who resigned May 12, and will report for duty in Juneau around August 1. Born at Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1922 of American parents, Mr. Hawkins has spent much of his adult life in Alaska. From 1950 to 1953 he was principal of the Territorial Government’s school at Ninilchik which had an enrollment of both Indian and non-Indian children. Later, after a year of advanced graduate work in education at Stanford University, he served from 1954 to 1956 as superintendent of the Dillingham Territorial School with an enrollment mainly of Eskimo children.
In his post with the Alaska Rural Development Board over the past two years, he worked directly under Territorial Governor Mike Stepovich to improve living conditions in remote and rural areas. The work brought him into close contact with the Indian and Eskimo populations and with the operations of the Indian Bureau.
In his new assignment, one of his most important responsibilities will be to supervise the Indian Bureau's educational program for the natives of Alaska and work toward its gradual integration with the Territorial public school system. The Bureau operates two large boarding schools in Alaska at Mt. Edgecumbe and Wrangell, 69 regular day schools scattered throughout the Territory, and 12 instructional aid schools in particularly remote areas. It also has programs for assisting the native population of approximately 35,000 in welfare, law and order, relocation, and resources development.
Mr. Hawkins has both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in education from Pennsylvania State University and served as a First Lieutenant with the Army in Italy during World War II. In addition to his work with the Department of Education and the Alaska Rural Development Board, Mr. Hawkins and his family homesteaded during the same period on the Kenai Peninsula near Clam Gulch. During several summers, he fished, commercially in Cook Inlet and Kodiak waters. Mr. Hawkins’ wife, Mary, and two sons, Charles, 12, and Richard, S, will accompany him to Alaska.
