Thirty American Indian students at Haskell Indian Junior College Lawrence, Kans., the only Indian college operated by the Federal Government, completed a summer internship in government in Washington, D.C., in August Marvin L. Franklin, Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, announced today.
"These young people representing nine states were chosen from about 100 who asked to be included in the program," Franklin indicated.
The young Indian students came to Washington from the Kansas Bureau of Indian Affairs school in late May. They were housed in nearby Maryland apartments where they paid their own rent, and from which they bought their own groceries and commuted to what were largely downtown Washington, D.C., jobs. Haskell counsellors came with the group and a representative from each apartment met regularly with one of the counsellors.
''The experience gave these young people a chance to see the Nation's capital and an opportunity to grow by exposure to a way of life other than the one most had known," Franklin said.
The students, by state,
Arizona: Maxine Blackgoat, Navajo; Valerie Cruz, Apache (Whiteriver); Sally R. Gishie, Navajo; Rosalie Lopez, Papago; Mary Hellen Mitchell, Navajo; Serena Nachu, Apache; Danny Yazzie, Navajo; and Phillis Yazzie, Navajo.
California: Anthony Wapp, Kiowa-Sac & Fox; Terri White, Choctaw
Kansas: Anita Arkeketa, Wichita-Delaware; Ramona McLemore, Cherokee-Choctaw; Deborah Mzhickteno, Otoe-Pottawatomi, Sac & Fox.
Missouri: Jesse James, Jr., Creek-Sioux.
New Mexico: Steven Begay, Navajo (Crownpoint); Dawna Riding-In, Pawnee (Gallup); James Riding-In, Pawnee (Gallup); George Tsadiase, Zuni (Zuni); Alta Mae Tsosie, Navajo (Chinle); Lela M. Virgil, Jicarilla Apache (Dulce).
Oklahoma: Jaxine Busbyhead, Cherokee; Sunny Frejo, Pawnee; Adell Gaines, Choctaw (Tulsa); Oliver B. Neal, Chickasaw-Cherokee; Suzette Snyder, Choctaw (Tuskahoma); Wesley Wildcat, Pawnee.
South Dakota: Dorothy Tabacco,Sioux (Pine Ridge); John Yellowhair, Sioux (Pine Ridge).
Washington: Virginia Marie Penn, Chehalis.
Wisconsin: Delores Jane Mann, Oneida.
The young people held jobs within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of the Secretary of Interior, National Capitol Parks, and the Bureau of Land Management, all within the Department of the Interior.
Several trips to Washington, D.C., landmarks and environs of the Nation's capital were arranged for the group while they were in the District of Columbia.
Haskell Indian Junior College was established in 1884 and has an enrollment of nearly 1,200 students from more than one hundred American Indian Tribes.
Some of the students who were in Washington, this summer were taking a vocational curriculum and others preparing for an additional two years of college or more elsewhere.
