Appointment of Kenneth L. Payton as superintendent of the Mescalero Indian Agency, Mescalero, N. Mex., effective November 12 was reported today by the Department of the Interior.
He succeeds Hobart Johnson who transferred from Mescalero in September to be superintendent of the Indian Bureau's Intermountain School at Brigham, Utah.
Payton, 35, joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs in early 1950 after graduating from Oklahoma A&M College in 1949. His first assignment was as a soil conservation engineer in the Hopi jurisdiction at Keams Canyon, Ariz. Subsequently he served at several locations on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico.
In 1958 he was transferred to the Consolidated Ute Agency, Ignacio, Colo., as a land operations officer. Since 1960 he has been in charge of land operations work at this agency. He is a native of Picher, Okla., and served in the Navy during World War II.
