Richard C. Whitesell, Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Flathead Agency at Ronan, Montana, has been detailed to act as Area Director at the Bureau office in Billings, Montana. He will serve in this capacity pending the appointment of a temporary successor to James Canan.
Canan was recently assigned by Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard to manage the field operations portion of a BIA Management Improvement Program.
Whitesell, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, was formerly an Assistant Area Director for Community Services in Phoenix, Arizona, and for six years was Education Program Administrator at the Flandreau Indian School in South Dakota from 1971 to 1976. He served at Riverside School in Oklahoma from 1969 to 1971.
Whitesell, who served four years with the U. S. Marine Corps, graduated from the State Col.1ege at Dickinson, North Dakota and earned a Masters degree in Education from South Dakota State University in 1969.
Whitesell, 42, also has served as teacher-coach in the Brockton, Mont. public schools and at the BIA schools at Pierre and Cheyenne River in South Dakota. He is married and has three children, two sons and a daughter.
