OPA

Commissioner Bruce said the new policy carries out an earlier pledge to turn BIA into a service rather than a management organization.

The move, according to Bruce, is designed to facilitate the transition of the old Bureau "Agency Superintendent into a modern Field Administrator. "I am giving the Field Administrators more horsepower--they are the people who are working directly with the Indian people every day," Bruce said.

"We have thrown out the old job descriptions and built completely new ones designed to assist Indian people to take control over their own destinies, develop economic and social opportunities, as well as provide for better Federal protection of the trust status of Indian land."

Bruce stated that in addition to these administrative changes, the BIA is providing for negotiation at the highest level of contractual and training arrangements to assist tribes in taking over administration of BIA programs. This effort will be headed ·by Olympic gold medal inner Billy Mills, a Sioux Indian.

"We are after a complete overhaul," Bruce said, "One of my four executive task forces has just completed work on the new agency field evaluation plan. I have directed high level executive teams composed of Tribal Leaders, BIA, the National Council on Indian Opportunity (NCIO) in the Vice President's Office,

and other Federal representatives to go to the field and evaluate Indian programs.

''With these evaluations we will be able to determine accurately where our field people are really helping Indian people to make substantial gains and where they are falling short."

The proposed revision codifies for the first time many rules, practices and procedures previously contained only in memoranda and instructions, and is designed to bring all procedures into line as far as practicable with the general philosophy of current court rules and practices. Included are a proposal that would modernize regulations relating to the probate of estates of deceased Indians is being published in the Federal Register, the Board of Indian Appeals in Interior's Office of Hearings and Appeals announced today. The updated procedures would make it feasible to probate Indian estates more efficiently and eliminate delays, the Board said. In addition, the new framework is designed to afford a greater degree of impartiality and independence in handling Indian probate matters through the Board.

Provisions for the approval of settlement of disputes by compromise, determina­tion of nationality and non-Indian status, the taking of depositions and for discovery procedures, determination of escheat of estates, as well as procedures applicable to appeals proceedings before the Board of Indian Appeals.

Written comments, suggestions or objections should be submitted within 30 days after publication of the proposed regulations in the Federal Register. Such comments should be addressed to the Director, Office of Hearings and Appeals, Attention Special Assistant to the Director (Regulations), 4015 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, Virginia 22203.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Fred J. Russell today signed an order extending the legal “freeze” on public domain lands in Alaska until midnight on June 30, 1971 -- or sooner, if Native land claims legislation takes effect in the interim.

Secretary Russell said the extension of the two-year-old order beyond its scheduled expiration date of December 31, 1970, is intended to give Congress additional time to complete action on legislation settling the land claims of Alaska's native Aleuts, Eskimos and Indians.

Secretary Russell stressed that the language of the extension order signed today is identical to that of the original order issued in January 1969. In addition to the six-month extension, the only substantive change is that applications for patents (land titles) may be processed to conclusion for home­ steads, where valid settlement was made prior to December 14, 1968; for native land allotments where occupation was commenced before the same date; and for trade or manufacturing sites, home sites or headquarters sites if the claim was initiated before that date.

The order affects more than 90 percent of the land area of the largest State in the Union. It continues in effect the withdrawal of all unreserved lands. The order also continue the “freeze” on the Federal lands which are subject to selection by the State of Alaska pursuant to the Alaska Statehood Act of 1958 and continues the "freeze" on applications for leases under the Federal Mineral Leasing Act of 1920.

Beginning on the 91st day after expiration of the order, all applications for leases, licenses, permits or land title transfers that were pending when the "freeze" took full effect January 17, 1969, will be given the same status and consideration. As if there had been no intervening period. During those intervening 90 days after this "freeze" order expires, the State of Alaska will have a preferred right to select public lands under the Statehood Act.

The full text of the new order is being sent for immediate publication in the Federal Register.

The President today signed H. R. 471 which declares that certain lands in Carson National Forrest, New Mexico, are held in trust for the Pueblo de Taos. This tract, comprised of approximately 48,000 acres of land and the Blue Lake, has been used by the Taos Pueblo Indians for religious and tribal purposes since the fourteenth century.

In 1906, the United States Government appropriated these lands for the creation of a national forest. The Indian Claim s Commission has determined that the government took these lands without compensation, The President, in his July 8, 1970 Message to Congress on Indian Affairs said:

The restoration of the Blue Lake lands to the Taos Pueblo Indians is an issue of unique and critical importance to Indi ans. throughout the country. I therefore take this opportunity wholeheartedly to endorse legislation which would restore 48,000 acres of sacred and to the Taos Pueblo people, with the statutory promise that they would be able to use these lands for traditional purposes and that except for such uses the lands would remain forever wild.

H. R. 471 would declare that the U.S. holds title, in trust for the Pueblo de Taos, to the described area and that the l and s will become part of the Pueblo de Taos Reservation and will be administered by the Secretary of the Interior under the laws and regulations applicable to other Indian trust land. The bill provides that the Indians shall use the land for traditional purposes only, such as religious ceremonies, hunting and fishing, a source of water , for age for livestock , wood, timber and other natural resources for their personal use, subject to the necessary conservation practices prescribed by the Secretary. Except for these described practices, the land will remain forever wild and will be administered as a wilderness under the Wilderness Act of 1964.

Other provisions of H. R. 471 include the permission for nonmembers of the tribe to enter the lands for purposes compatible with wilderness preservation upon consent of the tribe. This bill does not alter the rights of present holders of federal leases or permits covering the land but would authorize the Pueblo, with tribal funds, to obtain the relinquishment of such leases or permits. Finally, this bill directs the Indian Claims Commission to determine to what extent the value of land conveyed in this legislation should be set off against any claims the Taos may have against the United States.

Indian students at the Bureau of Indian Affairs new Gray Hill High School will have the opportunity to become environmentalists, homemakers, and carpenters, all under the same roof. The school is now under construction on the Navajo Indian Reservation just outside of Tuba City, Ariz.

The $7.7 million federal installation is expected to be ready for youngsters from the 9th through the 12th grade by September 1972. Completion of an adjoining public school building is expected to follow. Construction on it will start during the 1971-72 school year.

The Bureau school will draw pupils from six elementary schools under the Tuba City Agency of the federal organization. It will serve 600 boarding school students. The public school is also expected to enroll about 600 day students.

A boarding school rather than a day school was designed because federal funds are not available to build a high school onto each elementary school. Distances in the land of the Navajo and Hopi are so great and the roads too few to bus all the youngsters to a single consolidated high school.

Tailored to Educate Navajos, Hopis

Gray Hill High School is being built to serve youngsters of the Navajo-Hopi community in the Southwest. There, will be no long walks through blowing reservation sand between school buildings because the new structure will have “all under one roof" architecture.

"Educational opportunities other than the minimum necessary to meet state standards will be included at Gray Hill High school," said Kirby K Jackson, school superintendent of the Tuba City Bureau of Indian Affairs Agency, headquarters for the planning of the school.

It will offer courses in Indian history and culture and attempt to build a concept of the Indian heritage to reinforce the student’s sense of their Indian identities.

Vocational courses will follow the thrust of job openings, on and near the Navajo and Hopi Reservations and throughout the nation.

Leaders of the Indian community the school serves say that the area is very short of skilled people those who can successfully repair an automobile, build a house, install plumbing and electric wiring. In an effort to fill this need, Gray Hill High School will have two multi-purpose shops in which enrollees of the school can learn both basic wood and metal working.

In keeping with the Indians typical reverence for his natural environment, the school will have a greenhouse in which plants can be started to landscape the school grounds. Through this project the school children can learn the "why" of soil erosion and overgrazing, both problems of the Navajo and Hopi land base.

The school will also offer enriched academic studies for those who elect a college preparatory curriculum.

The three-story dormitory that will house boarding school, pupils is designed to give each student maximum privacy. A large lobby will serve as a waiting room for parents who are encouraged to visit their children every weekend. Patio areas where the youngsters can develop gardens or hold cookouts will be built along the edge of the dormitory. Plans call for a duplicate dormitory to be built later.

A dining commons will also serve as a student union for dances and other recreational activities. Classrooms will be separated by dividers and all equipment will be portable. A lecture room can serve as a small auditorium or be divided into six classrooms.

Included in the design is a library and a TV center that can produce closed circuit television programs to be “piped in” to other portions of the school. A gymnasium to serve as a community meeting place and an athletic arena will have a seating capacity of 2,600.

A complex devoted entirely to personnel services and offering the privacy of conference areas will enable counsellors to "work with pupils individually and will also house meetings of the student body council.

School Reflects Community Planning

"Gray Hill High School has involved more community planning. A than any other Bureau of Indian Affairs school” said the Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent at Tuba City.

The development of educational specifications for the Bureau high school started when a questionnaire was submitted to Navajo and Hopi parents, tribal leaders, prospective pupils, and other citizens in the area.

Then the federal planners studied an eight-state project in designing education for the future and the educational specifications of two Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools that have been operating for some time: Albuquerque Indian School and Wingate High School.

Next came days of meetings of the Technical Planning Committee. First it developed a philosophy. Then it drew up 20 basic assumptions as to the future the Gray Hills High School pupils would face. Both were refined after Indian committee members had submitted them to their home communities.

After a working draft of school specifications were developed, meetings were held at Tuba City with the Community Advisory Council. These meetings helped the council to better understand the Gray Hill High School students and the facility it would take to serve them

The contractor now building the school on what was once a sagebrush covered slope is Lebke Construction Co., Albuquerque, N. M.

During the many years I have worked in the Bureau of Indian Affairs I have witnessed many phases and much progress in service to Indian people. I believe that no era is as exciting or potentially beneficial to Indians as that of the "70's".

The Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian people are seeking new ways and new approaches which will be both realistic and progressive. I am pleased that I will have an opportunity to assist in carrying out the new policy which has been designed to make the Department and Bureau totally responsive to Indian needs.

It will be a pleasure and an honor to work with Secretary Morton and Deputy Under Secretary Rogers. I look forward to serving the American Indian and Alaska Native people in my new position.

Doyee L. Waldrip, 47, Superintendent, Warm Springs Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Warm Springs, Ore, will become assistant area director for administration of the Portland Area office of the Bureau June 27, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Louis R. Bruce announced today. He will replace James E. Sayers, who was retired.

Said the Commissioners in announcing the appointment. "The new Assistant Area Director of the Portland Area Office has demonstrated executive and managerial capabilities and personal characteristics essential to progressive and responsive administration leadership.”

Waldrip served as Superintendent of the Warm Springs Agency beginning in 1965· Prior to that he was Superintendent of the Seminole Agency of Florida.

He was graduated from West Texas State University with a degree in science and agriculture in 1950, and began his career with the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a teacher in the Cherry Creek Day School, Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, South Dakota. He moved from there to the Cheyenne River Boarding School on the same reservation. He has served as field representative and as administrative officer for the Fort Totten agency, North Dakota, and as administrative officer for the Seminole agency.

Fifty American Indian students in Bureau of Indian Affairs high schools carne to Washington, D. C. last week and discussed "What is being done to preserve nature?", "How can smoke from sawmills and paper mills be prevented?" and "How can natural resources be used without creating pollution?"

The occasion was an environmental awareness forum for key Bureau of Indian Affairs high school students. They met to help Bureau of Indian Affairs educators determine what should be included in the environmental awareness curriculum, now a part of the Bureau school system. I represented were Eskimos, Aleuts, and American Indians from 23 tribes.

Commissioner Louis R, Bruce addressed the visiting school students reminding them that "Environmental awareness is an area in which we American Indian people are more concerned than others some of the last we once owned, this is our land. We still call it ours. And we hope people will keep it as it is now.

The group met for five days beginning May 10. During that time they heard the Commissioner, Wilma Victor, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, Ed Coate, Pre Eident ' s Council on Environmental Quality, and James E. Hawkins, Director of Education for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, relate their education to the world around them.

The students toured Theodore Roosevelt Island Environmental Study Area in the middle of the Potomac River across from the Nation’s Capital. Their guide pointed out that the Anacostin Indians who inhabited the island used fire to clear trees, and that even today fire can sometimes be effective in maintaining the balance of nature in wooded areas.

He indicated other ways in which man had changed the environment, sometimes improving it, other times disturbing it. Early settlers to the New World, he said, brought English ivy. On Theodore Roosevelt Island it is choking native undergrowth of greater value to the ecology.

An early inhabitant of the island dammed the Potomac on the Virginia side of the island with a causeway and so slowed the water that it became a lake where malaria bred. Malaria drove him from the island.

The Indian pupils posed questions to a representative of the President's Council on Environmental Quality, and to Bureau of Indian Affairs resource specialists.

Ideas discussed included: Measures may have to be taken to force industry to decide ten years in advance where to place an industrial plant; by 1975 the pollution problem may be settled.

They also learned that grass doesn't know a buffalo from a horse steer, or prairie dog; that if grass is constantly chewed or stomped off it is replaced by a more vigorous species. If that is also destroyed, weeds and sagebrush may follow. This is the overgrazing cycle that has taken place on some Indian reservations.

The pupils were urged to remember that in order to keep a good grass cover on the land they must "take half and leave half of the current year's growth”. A Bureau of Indian Affairs spokesman said that sometimes brush must be removed and the land reseeded into grass in order to get vegetation back on the land.

They learned that there are a dozen major forests on Indian reservations with a timber cut of 25 million board feet per year. First land on Indian reservations includes 13 million acres, 51/2 million of which is in commercial use.

One of the summary speakers, a student, asked that we "Don't litter for just one day ... and then for another day, because if nothing is done about pollution, in five years water will have to be rationed."

The Indian youngsters in grades 9, 10, 11, are taking back ideas gleaned from their forum in Washington D.C. to their schools, t10 provide background in environmental awareness the year ahead.

This forum ended a series of teacher workshops in environmental awareness throughout Indian county and in Washington, D. C. It will be followed by the presentation of environmental awareness awards in ceremonies that will conclude the school year. Indian school boards for Bureau of Indian Affairs schools will select projects to receive the awards.

Fleming Begaye, Sr., 47, Chinle, Arizona, a Navajo Indian, was presented the Indian Small Businessman of the Year award May 17, by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Louis R. Bruce. The ceremony took place in the auditorium of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C. as a part of Small Business Week, May 17 - 21.

As he presented the Indian Small Businessman of the Year plaque the Commissioner said: "An ex-Marine code-talker, Mr. Begaye has pyramided the small savings he began with into a complex of businesses grossing about $750.000 last year. He has provided the "Heart of Navajo land" with a modern service station, hardware, feed, auto parts, sporting goods store, general merchandise store, restaurant, an office building, and a working ranch."

Begaye's annual payroll alone is now 32 times his original investment, Commissioner Bruce pointed out, and added: "This allows him 24 full-time employees and six part-time employees. All but two are Navajo."

Peter MacDonald, Navajo Tribal Chairman, Paul Parrish, President of the Navajo Association, and John Nelson Dee, Navajo Tribal member attended the ceremonies. Bernard Kulik, Director, Office of Program Development, Office of Minority Enterprises represented the Small Business Administration.

MacDonald, With the Navajo Area Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, appointed the committee to select an Indian Small Businessman of the Year from the Navajo Area. At the ceremony, he pointed out that Begaye's special abilities enabled him to by-pass formal training and feasibility studies.

Begaye started his complex with $3.000 he saved while working for 14 years as a guidance counselor in the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school system on the Navajo Reservation. He built his first small service station, of cinderblocks, in 1960 at the junction of the Chinle-Many Farms highways where his large modern business complex now stands. His present service station is modern and has three bays.

In 1963, using profits from the service station, Begaye and his family built a general merchandise store. Again, with profits, they added a restaurant in 1964. The following year they added a hardware auto parts, and sporting goods store and in 1967 built professional offices. Begaye also has a cattle and sheep ranching business he has maintained and expanded.

The Navajo businessman was selected for his long, sustained record of success and business growth. He has one of the most extensive and well-run business enterprises on the entire Navajo Reservation, which is the size of West Virginia.

His business complex creates a large number of jobs, held largely by Indians. He has had to borrow almost no capital, and has consistently put profits back into the sound expansion of this outstanding enterprise.

His wife also a Navajo is the general manager of the Begaye business complex. Their three children also work in the enterprise.

Begaye is one of the most active people in civic affairs on the reservation. He has supplied help and information to t tribal, state, and federal agencies, and has been active in efforts to establish a branch bank in Chinle. He is also an active member of the Navajo Businessmen's Association. This Indian businessman is on the executive board of the Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity, an active member of the Chinle Planning Board, and a former member of the Chinle Public School Board.

He has contributed financial backing and goods to the Navajo Community College, Navajo Police Department, local rodeos, the community basketball teams, churches, and schools. Begaye also maintains an active interest in the Navajo Youth Baseball league.

Runners-up for the award were Clarence E. Brooks, Cherokee Indian owner and manager of Brooks Cleaners, Owasso, Oklahoma and Popovi Da San Ildefonso Pueblo, owner and operator of Popovi Da Studio, which deals in pottery, turquoise, and silver jewelry in San Ildefonso Pueblo.

Popovi Da started in business after World War II with the first GI Loan granted to an Indian in the Albuquerque area. He expanded his business to all parts of the United States and Europe by exhibits at fairs and art shows. He now has agents in Chicago and other large cities of the United States who wholesale his pottery.

Others nominated for the 8Ivard were Russell Edwin Smith, member of the Confederated Tribe’s of the Harm Springs Reservation, Oregon, owner and operator of the Russell Smith Logging Company; Ralph Perdue.

Athabascan Indian, Fairbanks, Alaska, owner and operator of a jewelry store; and Lee Thomas, Hopi Indian, owner and operator of a business complex at Orabi, Arizona which includes a laundromat, trailer park cafe, and building construction business.

Other outstanding small businessmen were Nick O. Nick, Eskimo, trading post owner and operator at Nunapitchuk, Alaska; Ralph Simon, Kickapoo Indian, owner and operator of the Simon Roofing Company, Horton, Kansas; Dr. Frank L. Enos, Shoshone, veterinarian of Landen, Wyoming near the Wind River Reservation.

Also included were: John Trottier, Sr., Turtle Mountain Chippewa who operates a turkey breeding flock operation in Benson County, North Dakota; Maynard Whitebird, Odanah, Wisconsin, member of the Bad River Tribe, owner and operator of Whitebird, Incorporated, a tool and die shop; and Leo D. Calae, member of the Rincon Band of Mission Indians, San Diego County, California, owner and operator of two Indian arts and crafts shops in California -- one in Escondido and the other in Palm Springs, California.