LOWER BRULE INDIANS TO BE TRAINED--The CalDak Electronics Corporation of Pierre, S. D., recently negotiated a $6,950 contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide on-the-job training for a group of South Dakota Indians. The trainees, 16 Sioux from the Lower Brule Reservation, will learn to assemble electronics components while employed in the company's plant on their reservation. The opportunity to learn while earning is a part of the Bureau's employment assistance program aimed at expanding job opportunities for reservation Indians.
LEGAL AID FOR INDIANS--Indigent Montana Indians will benefit from a project soon to be undertaken by the University of Montana's School of Law. The University recently received a $54,150 grant from the National Defender Project, sponsored by the Ford Foundation to help those who are charged with crimes and cannot afford counsel.
The grant will be used for a three-year program to provide law students to aid assigned attorneys in these cases. The students will carry out investigations and perform legal research.
Charles L. Decker, Director of the National Defender Project, said the grant was the first under the Project to consider the plight of indigent Indians charged with crimes.
INDIAN CATTLE OPERATIONS PROFITABLE--Figures recently released by two Indian cattle enterprises indicate profitable operations during 1965.
The Mescalero Apache Cattle Growers, a cooperative on New Mexico's Mescalero Reservation, reported that sales topped $370,000 last year, thus wiping out a 1964 loss. The cooperative's cash position was sizably improved.
Meanwhile, on the San Carlos Reservation in neighboring Arizona, livestock-men sold nearly 10,000 head of cattle for $1.2 million. The San Carlos Apache Tribe, which operates a 16,000-head tribal herd, cooperates with the University of Arizona and the U. S. Department of Agriculture in a performance testing program. In 1955 the Indians set aside a purebred herd of 600 Hereford cows which has since been used as a foundation for the production of high quality replacement bulls. The objective is to increase beef production through scientific selection of breeding stock.
SECOND BRANCH STORE FOR NAVAJO CRAFTS GUILD--Construction is well under way at Kayenta, Ariz., of the second branch store to be operated by the Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild. The store's spacious sales area will include a modern sunken lounge with cone-shaped metal fireplace. The building also will provide living quarters for a manager-custodian and a workroom for craftsmen.
Designed by the Architectural Section of the Navajo Tribes Department of Design and Construction and built by local workmen, it will be completed by early July.
The Navajo Arts and Crafts Guild was established in 1941 to promote the sales of quality silver work and Navajo rugs. The Guild's main building is at Window Rock; and a branch store has been opened at Cameron, Ariz.
COLVILLE CLEANUP CAMPAIGN--President Johnson's program to keep America Beautiful is off to a flying start on the Colville Reservation in Washington.
A hard working five-man crew has been disposing of unsightly trash on roadsides, lawns and fields. Salaries for the workmen are paid by the Colville Federated Tribes, and three trucks were provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
To date the crew has located, gathered and buried an accumulation of junk that includes 600 rusting car bodies, numerous refrigerators and other abandoned items. Reservation dwellers are urged to help eliminate other eyesores in yards, fields and along roadsides.
The campaign was sparked by community rallies, poster contests in schools, and publicity through local newspapers and radio stations. Pleased with the improved appearance of their reservation, the Colville Indians plan to continue the campaign throughout the summer.
ANNUAL INDIAN ART EXHIBITION--Rafael Medina, an Indian artist from New Mexico's Zia Pueblo, was named winner of the $250 grand award in the Twenty-First Annual American Indian Artists Exhibition at Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Okla.
The winning painting, in casein, is entitled, "Answered Prayer." It was the first major award in nationwide competition for Medina, a self-taught artist.
Other awards included: a special trophy to Oscar Howe, Sioux artist from Vermillion, S. D., for outstanding contributions to the annual competition, $150 first place and $75 second place awards for regional paintings, for a special category recognizing new trends in American Indian art and for sculpture. Winners were:
First in Plains paintings, Blackbear Bosin, Kiowa-Comanche artist from Wichita, Kans.; second, David E. Williams, Kiowa-Apache, Los Angeles;
First in Woodland paintings, Jerome R. Tiger, Creek-Seminole, Muskogee, Okla.; second, Fred Beaver, Creek-Seminole, from Ardmore, Okla.;
First in Southwest paintings, Raymond Naha, Hopi, Gallup, N. Mex.; second, Harrison Begay, Navajo, Ganado, Ariz.;
First in special category, Joan Hill, Cherokee-Creek, Muskogee, Okla.; second, Valjean McCarty Hessing, Choctaw, Owasso, Okla.;
First in sculpture, Robert D. Shorty, Navajo, Santa Fe, N. Mex., second, John D. Free, Osage, Pawhuska, Okla.
SANTA FE INSTITUTE STUDENTS TAKE HONORS--Students of the Institute of American Indian Arts at Santa Fe, N. Mex., won a total of 10 merit awards, plus )ne honorable mention in a Statewide Creative Writing Contest sponsored by the New Mexico State University. There were 524 entries from 28 schools, and 24 merit awards were given. The winning short stories and poems will appear in a publication of the State University, with cover design by an Institute art student.
AND THAT'S A LOT OF COOKIES!--The Chaparral Girl Scouts of the Navajo Reservation are proving that Scout cookies are big business. The 1,200-acre site they selected for a campground in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico will cost $123,585. The girls have been working hard to earn money toward the purchase price, including the Scouts' traditional fund-raising method of selling cookies. Now their elders are sufficiently impressed to offer help. A capital fund campaign to raise money for the camp is scheduled for kick-off in the first half of 1967.
INDIAN CLAIMS COMMISSION ACTIONS--An award of $11,394 has been granted to the Iowa Tribe of the Iowa Reservation in Kansas and Nebraska, the Iowa Tribe of the Iowa Reservation in Oklahoma, and the Iowa Nation, in settlement of a general accounting claim.
The Commission also held that the petitioners were entitled to recover the fair market value of 4,798 acres of land excluded from a reservation created for the Iowa Nation under a treaty of September 17, 1836.
In an order of April 4, 1966 the Claims Commission ruled that the Piankeshaw Tribe had title to a tract of land in eastern Illinois that was ceded under the Treaty of May 23, 1807. The case will now proceed for determination of issues, including acreage, and value of the land involved.
