The Department of the Interior announced today that Charles S. Spencer, superintendent of the Fort Hall Agency in Idaho, has been named to head the Yakima Agency headquartered at Toppenish, Washington.
Spencer will assume his new duties on July 1. He replaces Melvin L. Robertson, who retired from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in March.
Spencer's successor at Fort Hall Agency is John L. Pappan, tribal operations officer at the Nevada Agency, Carson City, Nevada. The effective date of Pappan's transfer has not yet been determined.
Spencer joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1931 as farm agent at the Crow Agency in Montana. Subsequently, he served as extension agent at the Western Shoshone Agency, Owyhee, Nevada, and as soil conservationist at the Wind River Agency, Fort Washakie, Wyoming. He was named superintendent of the Rosebud Agency, Rosebud, South Dakota, in 1952, and was superintendent of the Blackfeet and Flathead agencies in Montana prior to his appointment as superintendent at Fort Hall.
He is a native of Victor, Idaho, and was graduated from the University of Idaho with a B.S. degree in agriculture in 1929.
Pappan, an enrolled member of the Kaw Indian Tribe, entered the Indian Service as a soil conservationist in 1950 at the Colorado River Agency, Parker, and Arizona. In 1957 he transferred to the position of program officer at the Riverside Area Field Office in California, and since 1962 has been tribal operations officer at the Nevada Agency. A native of Newkirk, Oklahoma, he attended Oklahoma A&M College and is a veteran of the United States Navy.
