Three major personnel changes in the Bureau of Indian Affairs involving the area offices at Muskogee, Okla., and Minneapolis, Minn., were announced today by the Department of the Interior.
Paul L. Fickinger, area director at Muskogee since 1954, has been named special assistant to Deputy Commissioner John O. Crow and will be stationed at Albuquerque, N. Mex. His first major assignment will be to supervise a comprehensive survey of the adequacy of the Bureau's buildings and plants, consisting largely of school plants, located at its field installations throughout the country.
As area director at Muskogee, Fickinger will be replaced by Graham E. Holmes, the Departments assistant solicitor in charge of Indian legal activities and a former superintendent and assistant area director with the Indian Bureau.
At Minneapolis the new area director will be James E. Hawkins, former area director at Juneau, Alaska. He succeeds Robert D. Holtz who transferred to the area director's post at Portland, Oreg., last May. Thomas L. Carter, who has been serving as acting area director at Minneapolis since Holtz' transfer, will resume his regular duties as assistant area director.
Fickinger, a native of Maxwell, Iowa, and graduate of the University of New Mexico, .has been with the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 30 years. Before coming to Muskogee in 1954, he was in charge of the office at Billings, Mont., for eight years and had 12 years of service in the Bureaus national headquarters at Washington, D. C., and Chicago, Ill.
Holmes was born at Whitefield, Okla., and holds a law degree from the University of Arkansas. He has been assistant solicitor for Indian legal activities for about a year and earlier served with the Bureau as assistant area director at Gallup, N. Mex., superintendent at Rosebud, S. Dak., area counsel at Aberdeen, S. Dak., and probate attorney at Wewoka, Okla.
Hawkins was born at Buenos Aires, Argentine, of North American parents and has both a bachelor's and a master's degree in education from Pennsylvania State University. He joined the Bureau in 1958 as area director at Juneau and earlier served as executive director of the Alaska Rural Development Board and as a superintendent and teacher in the Territorial schools.
