OPA

With the opening last month of a large-scale electronics assembly plant on the Navajo Reservation, a trend toward Indian employment in precision industries has been solidly established, the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs reported.

The Navajo-based enterprise--Semiconductor Division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation of New York--extends the company's worldwide operations to another economically underdeveloped area and offers promise of a further breakthrough in the Indians' efforts to bring new vitality to isolated regions.

The Navajo Tribe has been on the lookout for ways to develop a rural area-- the craggy volcanic hill country surrounding Shiprock, New Mexico. The Shiprock site for the Fairchild electronic enterprise was selected by the tribal council because it is located in a region marked by the tribe for industrialization and urbanization in an effort to diversify and expand the region's economy.

More than 200 Navajos will be trained on-the-job under a contract between Fairchild and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Recruitment is on a reservation-wide basis. A further series of on-the-job training programs is anticipated for the near future, with eventual employment projected at 800.

The 50 Navajos already on the job, trained under a program financed through the Area Redevelopment Administration, "learn quickly and have a high productivity level” according to Fairchild spokesmen.

In exploring the possibilities, Fairchild representatives admitted they had some early doubts concerning the ability--and reliability--of Indian workers.

A check with other firms employing Indians--such as Harry Winston Minerals, a diamond-processing plant near Phoenix; and Bulova Watch, which manufactures ordinance parts at the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation in North Dakota--satisfied them that Indian workers are precise, accurate and willing.

The Navajo country has a population of over 90,000, with tremendous unemployment. Every job created by Fairchild is expected to generate at least one other new job in business or services in the area.

What is happening on the Navajo Reservation is also taking place in other Indian areas.

New uses--economically productive uses--of Indian land are being sought to breathe new life into many communities. An increasing Indian population (due to declining infant, maternal and disease death rates), coupled with a national economic evolution away from independent farming and ranching, have created new problems for the Indians who still cling to rural reservation life. There are about 552,000 Indians in the United States according to census figures, and about 380,000 of them live on reservations and receive help from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, trustee for 50 million acres of Indian land.

One of the Bureau's concentrated efforts has been toward encouraging Indian tribes to link forces with the industrial and business community. As a result, manufacturers seeking workers with a combination of manual dexterity and highly developed sense of spatial relationships are looking toward the Indian labor market.

The Indian, with a natural affinity for precision work, is equally at home as a high-climbing steel structural worker and as a weaver of intricate designs. Somewhere between the two extremes lies electronic factory work, which calls for skill that is rooted in pride of workmanship. Two other electronics industries are already in business in economically hard-pressed Indian areas, and three more are currently under construction. Simpson Electric Company currently employs 75 Indians (nearly half its total employment) in a plant on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation in Wisconsin, which manufactures electric meters and parts. It was one of the first to venture into the Indian labor market. Burnell &Company, Inc., employs 100 Pueblo Indians in a components manufacturing plant on the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was the primary agent in bringing the Indians and Burnell together.

Two companies are now preparing for production in economically depressed areas of South Dakota. They are CalDak Electronics, which will soon open at the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation, and Electro Tech Educational Corporation, scheduled to open a plant on the Yankton Sioux Reservation.

U.S. Automatics Corporation is in partnership with the Crow Tribe of Montana, and the new venture will soon commence operation at Hardin.

Other industrial ventures include the Sequoyah Mills at Anadarko and the projected Emle Western Hosiery Mill in Pryor, Oklahoma, and a variety of plants at Cherokee, North Carolina.

A total of 52 enterprises of various kinds have found their way thus far into Indian areas, with the Bureau of Indian Affairs supplying technical advice to tribal authorities and industrial representatives through the planning and financing stages.

The list of products that Indian workers are manufacturing includes fish products (Unalaska, Alaska); soft goods (Cherokee, North Carolina); ladies' garments (Fort Hall, Idaho); aluminum culverts (Gallup, New Mexico); furniture frames (Mille Lacs, Minnesota); cheese (Mission, South Dakota); plastic aircraft instrument panels (Wewoka, Oklahoma).

The total impact upon Indian areas is evidenced in new housing; community activity centers; classes in adult basic education in which tribal elders are the eager students; development of neglected areas into recreational parks and campgrounds for tourists; marinas bordering waterways; paved roads; new livestock breeding herds; sawmills; a revival of arts and crafts production; and a surge of social and political vitality.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs offers Indians what is believed to be the best bargain in vocational-training opportunities available anywhere. The plan Days all costs of training and even pays cost of family living if the Indian trainee is the family head.

The response to this foot-in-the-door to employment has been so great that an initial fund of $3,5 million annually, established by Congress eight years ago, was increased this year to $15 million.

Many of the Indian men and women enrolled in the Adult Vocational Training program are preparing for work in some aspect of electronics--ranging from radio repair to rocketry.

Award of three contracts totaling over $707,500 for road improvement projects on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota and the Cheyenne River and Pine Ridge Reservations in South Dakota was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

A contract of $285,102 was awarded to construct one 150-foot bridge, and to grade, drain and surface 12.9 miles on the Cheyenne River Reservation, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash said. The strip of highway will run west from Cherry Creek in Zieback County, South Dakota, and will provide the first half of all-weather access road between the Cherry Creek and Bridger communities in the extreme southwestern section of the Reservation. The low bidder was E. Stoltenberg and Son of St. Paul, Nebraska. Six bids were received on this project, ranging to $337,044.

On the Fort Berthold Reservation, a $269,636 contract to grade, drain, and surface 14 miles of road, from near White Shield in McLean County, North Dakota westward, was awarded to Tennefos Construction Company, Inc., Fargo, North Dakota. A part of the perimeter road system for the Garrison Reservoir, the project will serve to increase recreation and tourist travel on the reservation. Seven bids, ranging to $291,769, were received for this project.

On the Pine Ridge Reservation, a contract for $152,800 provides for grading and drainage of 6.6 miles of school bus route northwest of Kyle, in Shannon County, South Dakota. J. F. Bailey, of Bonesteel, South Dakota, was the successful bidder with the lowest of four bids that ranged to $189,496.

Improvement of reservation roads is an important phase of resource development efforts carried on by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Indian lands to improve economic conditions and stimulate employment. The North and South Dakota projects will enhance school bus service, make city markets more accessible to farmers, stimulate recreational development on reservation lands, and create employment for Indian construction workers, Commissioner Nash said.

Thousands of American Indian high school boys and girls will keep the jobs they had this summer. But they won't be drop-outs. They will be “step-ups” into a special program combining work opportunities with part-time schooling leading to high school diplomas.

They are part of the Neighborhood Youth Corps--students who, were it not for the employment they are provided under the Economic Opportunity Act, may have joined the ranks of early school quitters because of the financial needs of their families. About 22,000 Indian youngsters were enrolled this past summer.

An experiment in helping teen-agers to help themselves, the NYC has been hailed by school teachers and administrators as the long-sought “holding power” that too many high school programs lack. For the student who sees a diploma slipping from his grasp because he literally cannot afford to continue in school-- and also for the student whose school problems center upon his failure to see the relationship between classroom and the world of work--NYC offers an opportunity to earn while continuing to learn.

Indian youth, living in Indian communities from the Great Smokies in North Carolina to the Alaska panhandle, have spent what an official in the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs terms a "summer of self-discovery.”

Employed at the established minimum of $1.25 per hour, they have gone to work on jobs that needed doing but went undone for want of help--as hospital aides, library assistants, school and hospital maintenance and repair helpers, assistants in the record-keeping offices of various public agencies, workers on conservation and land reclamation projects, and helpers in public day-care centers for children of working mothers.

High on the Arizona plateaus that mark Hopi land, the NYC program enrolled '83 boys and girls of high school age in work projects to improve their land and villages. It put more cash into the pockets of Hopi families than many customarily see in a year, as the Hopi economy still is geared to livestock and crop farming, and some crafts production. Despite their remoteness and traditional reserve, the Hopi Indians place tremendous value upon education and are ardent supporters of programs that open up new educational opportunities for their young people.

At Taos, New Mexico, 85 young people spent two summer months repairing adobe buildings, fencing ranges, or serving as guides for the thousands of tourists who visit the remote but famed Taos Indian Pueblo in the New Mexico mountains. Added to their 30 hours per week of work were ten hours of classroom instruction for those who needed remedial programs to enable them to keep pace with their high school classes. The ten hours of weekly study were not reimbursed, but neither were they begrudged by the student workers. Much of the credit for the program's success is attributable to the Taos tribal leaders, whose wholehearted support set the tone for the student participants, BIA officials said.

Indian leadership almost everywhere has given support--and, thereby, prestige--to the Neighborhood Youth Corps for teen-agers, as well as to the companion "Operation Head Start" for pre-schoolers.

Insofar as possible, Indian adults were selected to work with the summertime Neighborhood Youth Corps. College students also formed a part of the leadership teams. On the Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina, it was soon discovered that Cherokee youngsters were particularly receptive to the example set by the college youth, who stressed such factors as attentiveness, good grooming, promptness, responsibility, and initiative on the job. This was also true elsewhere.

"I'm old enough to quit high school," one somber-eyed Cherokee boy said. "I could get a job in one of the plants around here, and make some money. But I'm going to stay in school and get my diploma, because I'll still be able to earn some money and buy some of the things I want if I work with NYC while I'm in school. They keep telling us that a school dropout never gets beyond an unskilled job. Well, to tell the truth, I don't care about that so much. But I do care about the layoff time, when there's no money coming in. With a better education, there are more chances of good work and good-paying work. That's why I'm going to finish school this year under the NYC."

An Oklahoma girl reported on her experience on the student work program: "I always thought I'd like to be a teacher but I knew I couldn't afford to go to college, so I didn't see much point in finishing high school. But if I can work part-time, all the way through, and then get a scholarship from the Bureau or some Federal loan, then there's a real chance. One of the college student leaders on our NYC project is going to be a teacher. She has a loan and a scholarship and I admire her very much."

In the remote Indian community of Poplar, Montana, 33 Sioux boys and girls of the Fort Peck Reservation were also enrolled in NYC during the past summer. Among them were five who had graduated from high school and were planning to go on to further schooling in the fall. These five, and three college students, were among the leadership group in a promotional "Youth Opportunity Campaign," augmenting the Neighborhood Youth Corps and the Indian Bureau's own summer youth training program.

Sioux Indian areas in the Dakotas, and the remote Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation on the Canadian border, were also locales of Neighborhood Youth Corps activity during July and August, expected to continue through the present school year and will be extended into numerous additional Indian communities.

To participate in NYC, the local community must take the initiative by outlining a useful work program for student trainees and submitting the proposal to the Department of Labor, which operates the program for the office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, D. C. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, with a three-man staff of Economic Opportunity liaison officers, has served as the information agency to Indian communities, and has provided technical aid in developing not only NYC but other federally funded youth aid programs under the anti-poverty agency. Paralleling efforts in NYC have been the widespread "Head Start" projects for pre-schoolers, which enrolled nearly 10,000 during the past summer.

The Bureau staff in Washington anticipates that enrollments in the Neighborhood Youth Corps will increase now that school has begun.

A special collection of Navajo Indian rugs and blankets will be shown publicly for the first time in the Eastern United States at the Department of Interior Art Gallery, beginning September 22.

Navajo rugs and blankets have been prime collectors' items for more than a century, being first praised for fine quality by the Spanish Conquistadores who ruled the New Mexico and Arizona region in 1706. American interest in Navajo textiles increased sharply in the 1860's as a result of greater contact with the Navajos.

The fabrics to be displayed are part of the Gilbert S. Maxwell collection, permanently housed at the University of New Mexico. Maxwell, long an outstanding collector of Navajo arts and crafts, began assembling the collection in 1927. This is the first time, however, the public has been able to view the historic collection in the East.

Tom Bahti, an anthropologist and collector of Indian art for 16 years, from Tucson, Arizona, who selected the weaving to be displayed, is in Washington to arrange the show's opening.

Slave blankets, rugs named after a yarn: milled in Germantown, Pennsylvania; Indigo and Two Grey Hills designs are among the pieces selected to represent the history of Navajo weaving. The rugs and blankets date from 1850 to a 1961 product called Yei-bei-chai. An authentic Navajo loom will be set up in the gallery to illustrate the complexity of the art.

The public is invited to view without charge the collection from 10:00 a.m. -40:0 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, at the Department of Interior Art Gallery, fifth floor, 18th and C Streets, N.W., Washington, D. C. The show will be open from September 22 through November 5, 1965.

On-the-job training for 480 American Indians is set to begin under contracts recently completed with nine industries, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Philleo Nash announced today. The companies are located in New Mexico, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Montana, and Oklahoma.

Under Bureau agreements negotiated during the current fiscal year, a total of 717 Indian workers will receive on-the-job training--an increase of 10 percent over the total for the entire preceding year. Six contracts in Oklahoma, Minnesota and North Dakota were announced last month.

Funds for training are provided under a special Bureau program of adult vocational education. Training contracts parallel Bureau efforts to stimulate industrial activity in Indian areas.

The new trainees will learn such varied occupations as jewelry assembly and extrusion of plastic pipe.

Companies involved in contracts just completed are:

H. W. Gossard Co., Bristow, Oklahoma - a $7,770 contract for the training of 20 Indians, mainly Creeks, in the manufacture of women's garments.

Ashland Precision Products Corp., Ashland, Wisconsin--a contract for $12,075 to train 16 Indians from the Bad River Reservation.

Guild Arts and Crafts, Inc., Ashland, Montana--a contract for $5,700 to train 25 Northern Cheyennes of the Tongue River Reservation in jewelry making.

Cardinal Plastics, Inc., Gallup, New Mexico--a $6,200 contract for training of nine Navajos in the extrusion of plastic pipe.

Navajo Forest Products Industries, Window Rock, Arizona--renewal of a contract for 18 Navajos to receive training in manufacture of lumber and related products on the Navajo Reservation, at a cost of $18,100.

Kaiser Aluminum &Chemical Sales, Inc., Gallup, New Mexico--12 Navajos to be trained in aluminum culvert fabrication on tribal lands near Gallup. This is a contract renewal, valued at $4,325.

The Vassar Corp., Cherokee, North Carolina--modification of an earlier contract to increase the number of trainees to 267, thereby also increasing the amount of the contract to $160,600. This involves training of Cherokees in manufacture and assembly of modern hair accessories.

Burnell &Co., Inc., Valencia County, New Mexico--a renewal of a $83,375 contract covering training of 102 Laguna Pueblo Indians on the reservation in manufacture of electronic parts.

Saddlecraft, Inc., Cherokee, North Carolina--a $5,215 contract for training of 12 Cherokees in the manufacture of leathercraft items.

OKLAHOMA CHEROKEES PLAN $2 MILLION PROGRAM

The Oklahoma Cherokees have announced plans for a $2 million program of social and economic benefits for tribal members, to be financed from judgment awards by the Indian Claims Commission for Cherokee claims against the United States.

Projects include financing of construction and equipment for industrial enterprises; construction of trade and technical schools at Stilwell and Tahlequah; a loan guarantee program for tribal members; home improvement projects; student loans; research and writing of a history of the Cherokee Nation; establishment of a Cherokee Shrine and a drama production at Tahlequah; and development of a 40-acre commercial site near Tahlequah, to include an arts and crafts center and a Cherokee council house.

SEMINOLES PLAN FOR BIGGER AND MORE BUSINESS

The Seminole Indians on the Dania Reservation in Florida are planning to increase the attractions they offer for tourists. In the planning stage are a motel complex and golf course, to cost an estimated $980,000, near the Seminole office building at Sterling Road and State Route 7 in Dania.

Plans call for a 40-unit motel with a restaurant to seat 250 diners and a Banquet room for an additional 250. Manager's quarters, bar, storage, swimming pool and parking area are also included. The motel complex will be consolidated with a nine-hole lighted golf course and pro shop, to be constructed nearby.

Meanwhile, the Business Council of the Tribe has endorsed a resolution designating 66 acres of tribal land for industrial use. A tribal industrial development corporation, established by the Seminoles under Florida law, is now exploring means of financing site preparation such as roads, water, sewerage, electricity, and gas. The Tribe plans to lease the development areas to businesses engaged in research, warehousing, or light industry, and to construct buildings as required by the tenants.

NEW PLASTICS PLANT FOR MOBRIDGE, SOUTH DAKOTA

Ceremonies on August 26 marked the start of construction of a new $467,000 manufacturing plant for Products Miniatures of South Dakota, Inc. at Mobridge, South Dakota. The company, a manufacturer of plastic toys, novelties and industrial components, has been negotiating with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Standing Rock Tribe, and the local community.

The new plant will employ Indians from the nearby Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Reservations and a contract may be negotiated with BIA to provide on-the-job training for Indian employees. An initial work force of 30 will be hired, with peak employment expected to reach 100 when the plant is fully operating.

The 30,000-square foot building will be partially financed by a $380,900 loan from the Economic Development Agency, formerly the Area Redevelopment Administration.

SEATTLE FIRM TO STUDY ALASKA COOPERATIVE

The firm of Ernst and Ernst, Seattle, Washington, will conduct a year's study of the operation of the Alaska Native Arts and Crafts Cooperative Association, Inc. (ANAC) under a contract recently awarded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The study will examine ANAC merchandising practices with an eye to expanding markets for native arts and crafts products and improving technical services to native craftsmen.

UINTAH AND OURAY GET JUVENILE COURT

A comprehensive juvenile code for the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah was recently enacted by the tribal Business Council of the Ute Indian Tribe. The code provides for a juvenile tribal court with extensive powers, and was developed in consultation with State juvenile court officials.

YAKIMA INDIAN CLAIMS AWARD

The Indian Claims Commission has granted a $49,000 award to the Yakima Tribe. The amount represents additional compensation for 23,000 acres of land in the State of Washington ceded to the United States by the tribe on January 8, 1894.

KENNECOTT COPPER TO SPONSOR MINING TECHNOLOGY COURSE

A one-year training course for mineral industry technicians will be sponsored this fall by Kennecott Copper Company at the University of Alaska. About three fourths of the class of 15 will be Indians or Alaska Natives. The enrollees, all of whom have at least a junior high school education, will receive instruction in subjects such as: claim staking laws; map reading and drafting; mineral and rock identification; prospecting and mining methods; blasting and drilling; basic geography and geology; surveying and mapping; ore dressing techniques; and oral and written communication. The graduates will be offered employment in Kennecott's operation in the Copper River area.

The largest coal supply letter of intent agreement ever negotiated, utilizing Navajo and Hopi Indian coal reserves in Arizona, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall. The coal to be supplied under this agreement will be used in a planned electric generating plant to be built in Clark County, Nevada, by a group of private and public utilities, with Southern California Edison Company as project manager.

Secretary Udall said, "under the agreement, between Edison and the Peabody Coal Company, Navajo and Hopi coal reserves mined in Black Mesa area, Arizona, will be transported by slurry pipeline or rail to the plant site in Nevada.

"A minimum of 117,000,000 tons of coal would be delivered over a period of 35 years to fuel the first two units for this plant on the Colorado River below Davis Dam. In addition, it is foreseeable that more generating plants will be built later in the Nevada-Arizona area, utilizing additional millions of tons of Indian coal, " Udall stated.

The agreement will mean "new jobs, large tax benefits, and tremendous economic advantages not only in royalties and jobs for the two Indian tribes, but also for all of the entire southwest", the Interior Secretary said. It is estimated that royalties to the Indians will amount to more than $30 million over the term of the agreement.

Udall extended a commendation to "all parties involved in this agreement and for taking a giant step forward in development of a formula for joint public and private resource development in the Colorado Basin that will become a model for the Nation."

Final agreements will be subject to review and further action by the Indian Tribal governments and the Department of the Interior, Udall said.

Mr. Jack K. Horton, President of Southern California Edison, said in Los Angeles that the generating plant, to be known as the Mohave Steam Station, is proposed to be constructed as part of a regional power plan developed by “WEST” (Western Energy Supply and Transmission Associates), an Association of 17 public and private electric generating agencies of the southwest.

Horton said the contemplated plant, which will require an investment of approximately $150,000,000, will have an initial capacity of 1,500,000 kilowatts--enough power to serve a city of 2,000,000 people.

Edison expects to receive about one half of the power plants output; it is contemplated that the remainder will be used by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the Salt River project of Arizona and other southwest utilities.

The Edison President said, “the initial two units of Mohave are expected to go into operation by 1970 and 1971. If additional water supply becomes available in the future, the agreement contemplates the construction of additional generating plants to be built in the Arizona-Nevada area and calls for doubling the use of Indian coal supplied by the Peabody Coal Company as fuel,” he added.

Horton emphasized that the addition of coal-fired plants in the future does not diminish Edison's need for additional natural gas supplies for the numerous generating plants existing or under construction in the Southern California Metropolitan areas.

Edison now is awaiting a decision by the Federal Power Commission on an application to import a new supply of natural gas from Texas for this purpose.

T. C. Mullins, President of the Peabody Coal Company, also issued a statement from his firm’s headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri.

"The opening of this tremendous new market for coal extends Peabody’s area from Florida to California. We are pleased indeed to have this opportunity to contribute to the assurance of low-cost electricity in the western states and to resulting benefits to the Indians and the economy of the west”, Mullins said.

"In view of our Company's huge uncommitted coal reserves in this area, we look forward to continuing and expanded major participation in the growing emphasis on coal-generated power in the west.”

New school facilities in 17 Indian communities of eight States are being opened this fall by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, according to Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

They include 11 new schools and three additions to existing schools--enough to accommodate nearly 6,000 students, mostly in the elementary grades. Three dormitories, built to house more than 1,300 Indian youths who live too far away for commuting, also were completed in time for the fall season.

New structures include a shop building for Haskell Institute at Lawrence, Kansas. Starting this year, the Institute no longer will offer high school classes, but will devote its entire effort to post-high school vocational training. The new building is equipped with training facilities for 192 vocational students.

Two of the schools were built in Florida for the Miccosukees on the Tamiami Trail and the Seminoles at Big Cypress. They will provide about 120 Indian youngsters with elementary instruction that is specially adapted to their needs. The Miccosukee building replaces a one-room, portable structure loaned to the tribe two years ago by Dade County. Located 40 miles west of Miami on U. S. 41, it is part of a complex of new buildings erected by BIA for the Miccosukee Tribe.

It was only four years ago that the Miccosukees made the big leap from their seclusion in the Everglade swamps to a Twentieth-Century mode of living. Kin to the Seminoles and Creeks but always aloof from both tribes, they gained recognition as an independent tribe in January 1962, and were granted a strip of land adjoining the Tamiami Trail near Miami.

With the aid of BIA funds, they have built 15 "chickee" dwellings which are similar to their thatch-roofed native huts in design but contain four large rooms plus kitchen and bath. Tribal members own and operate the restaurant and service station, competing for Florida's tourist dollar. They also plan to build a community center as part of the same complex.

The Big Cypress school is located deep within the Seminole Indian Reservation south of Okeechobee. The school will serve Seminoles at the settlement and those living in some 50 camps within a mile radius.

Other facilities are located as follows:

Alaska: New elementary schools at Port Lion, Kasigluk and Elim.

Arizona: New elementary schools at Kaibeto, Many Farms, and Gila Crossing, with additions to elementary schools at Shonto and Teec Nos Pos; and a new dormitory for the high school at Phoenix.

California: New dormitory for high school and special students at Sherman.

Mississippi: New high school at Choctaw.

New Mexico: New elementary school at Chuska and high school at Fort Wingate.

Oklahoma: New dormitory for Chilocco High School.

A $378,000 contract award, announced today by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior, will provide a permanent supply of drinking water from the Oahe Reservoir for a BIA school at

Fort Yates, North Dakota, which serves 465 Sioux Indian children in grades 1 through 12. Fort Yates is a community on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, an area of more than 865,000 acres that sits astride the State line between North and South Dakota. The new water system will also serve the Standing Rock Indian Agency and the Public Health Service Hospital at Fort Yates. The Oahe Reservoir, source of the water supply, was created by construction of Oahe Dam by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The contract, calling for construction of a water treatment plant and intake structure, was awarded to the Brezina Construction Company of Rapid City, South Dakota. Bids received ranged to a high of $458,700.

The work includes earthfill and riprap protection for the intake structure, site work, grading, concrete walks, a gravel ramp, a 750-gallon septic tank and tile field, and approximately 300 lineal feet of 8-inch and 600 lineal feet of 6-inch water pipe. A clarifier tank, re-carbonator, chemical feeders, filters and pumps will be installed.

The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs today announced the appointment of James D. Hale to the post of Superintendent of the Choctaw Agency, at Philadelphia, Mississippi.

He succeeds Lonnie Hardin, who has transferred to the Bureau's Muskogee Area Office in Oklahoma as education director.

The new Superintendent has been Land Operations Officer at the Seminole Agency, Hollywood, Florida since March 1962. Prior to that he was a soil conservationist at the Seminole Agency and at the Muskogee Area Office. He joined BIA in 1952.

Born in Cave Creek, Arkansas in 1924, Hale attended schools in Alabama and Oklahoma. He holds a BS degree in Agronomy from Oklahoma A & M, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served in the Air Force from 1943 to 1946 and saw action in Europe and North Africa. He is married and the father of two sons.