OPA

A 1976 calendar of Indian celebrations, ceremonials, fairs and other special events open to the public has been published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The 40-page pocket-size booklet is designed to provide tourists in Indian country with information about historical commemorations, arts and crafts fairs, rodeos, pow-wows, native dances, religious observances and other attractions.

Events are listed by state, dates and locations. Brief, general advice for potential visitors is included. Addresses and phone numbers of BIA field offices where additional information is available are listed.

The American Indian Calendar 1976 will be available from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. The price is $1.05, and the stock number which should be used when ordering is 024-002-00056-0.

Editors: A review copy of the American Indian Calendar 1976 is available upon request from the Office of Public Information, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Washington D.C. 20245.

A plan for the use and distribution of more than $400,000 awarded to the Mojave Indians by the Indian Claims Commission for lands taken more than a century ago by the United States is being published in the Federal Register.

The award will be divided between the Fort Mojave Tribe of the Fort Mojave Reservation and certain persons of Mojave ancestry from the Colorado River Reservation. Both reservations are located on the California-Arizona, border.

The funds apportioned to the Fort Mojave Tribe, according to the plan approved by Congress and made effective April 12, will all be used for tribal programs, including health benefits for the elderly, improved transportation for tribal members and other community needs.

The funds apportioned to the Colorado River Mojaves will be distributed to the individuals on a per capita basis after a roll of eligible persons has been completed.

Ronald L. Esquerra, an enrolled member of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, has been appointed Director of the bureau of Indian Affair’s Albuquerque Area, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Esquerra, 31, has been Executive Assistant to Commissioner Thompson the past two years. He will report Albuquerque in mid-June. He succeeds Walter O. Olson retired in 1974.

"Ron has been my right hand," Thompson said. "I know he has the ability to handle the important responsibilities of the Albuquerque Area. He has proven his competence."

The Albuquerque Area includes most of New Mexico and Colorado.

Before caning to the Bureau, Esquerra was the Indian Field Officer in Phoenix, Ariz., for the Office of Minority Business Enterprise. In this capacity he managed Federal contracts and provided program assistance to Indian contractors in Arizona, California, New "Mexico and Nevada. He had previously worked in the Economic Development Administration as Deputy Special Assistant for Indian Affairs to the Assistant Secretary.

As a Ford Foundation leadership Development Fellow in 1970-71, Esquerra worked in numerous Federal, State, and tribal Indian programs. While completing graduate work at Arizona State University, he was also Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Arizona State Indian Community Action Program.

Esquerra majored in business management at Brigham Young University where he graduated with honors in 1966. After a two-year in military service he earned a Master’s in business administration at Arizona State.

He is perhaps the only Indian to complete the certification program of the American Mortgage Bankers Association at Northwestern University in Evanston, ill.

Esquerra grew up on the Colorado River Indian Reservation. In 1973 he was listed in the publication outstanding Young Americans.

Laura Bergt, a noted Eskimo leader, has been appointed as one of the five Commissioners of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Secretary of the Interior Thomas S. Kleppe announced today.

Mrs. Bergt currently serves as one of the distinguished members of President Ford's American Revolution Bicentennial Advisory Council, the Native American Council of Regents of the Institute of American Indian Arts, and on various Alaska state commissions and boards concerned with Native American education and cultural development, such as the University of Alaska Village Arts and Crafts Upgrade Committee and the Alaska state Rural Affairs Commission. She is a former member of the National Council on Indian Opportunity, and served with the Alaska State Native Land Claims Task Force. Mrs. Bergt resides in Fairbanks, Alaska.

The Indian Arts and Crafts Board's priority concerns are the protection of Native American artists and craftsmen and the expansion of their cultural opportunities. The Board provides professional advisory services and operates three museums located in Browning, Montana, Rapid City, South Dakota, and Anadarko, Oklahoma, which function as centers for exhibition, study and the sale of authentic contemporary Native American arts and crafts.

Other Commissioners on the Indian Arts and Crafts Board are Lloyd H. New, Chairman, and Director of the Institute of American Indian Arts of Santa Fe, New Mexico; Royal B. Hassrick, author and anthropologist specializing in Plains Indian culture and Western Americana, of Franktown, Colorado; William H. Crowe, Cherokee designer-craftsman of Cherokee, North Carolina; and Gerald J. Gray, Blackfeet educator and Superintendent of School District Number 87 in Box Elder, Montana.

A plan for the use and distribution of more than $400,000 awarded to the Pillager Bands of Chippewa Indians by the Indian Claims Commission was published in the Federal Register on May 27, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson said today.

The Award represents additional compensation for some 814,000 acres of land in west central Minnesota cede to the United States under the treaty of August 21, 1847.

Chippewa descendants of the Pillager Bands are now affiliated with either the Leech Lake Reservation of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota.

According to the plan, approved by Congress and made effective April 28, 80 percent of the Award will be distributed on a per capita basis to enrolled members of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe of Pillager Bands descent. The remaining 20 percent will be utilized for social and community purposes on the Leech Lake and White Earth Reservations.

Anson A. Baker, an enrolled member of the Mandan-Hidatsa Tribe, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Blackfeet Agency at Browning, Montana, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Baker has been Superintendent the past three years at the Fort Berthold Agency in North Dakota. He was previously Superintendent of the Crow and Fort Peck agencies in Montana.

Baker, 49, came to word for the Bureau 25 years ago as a property supply clerk in the Aberdeen, South Dakota, Area Office. After working at the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Agencies in South Dakota and Fort Belknap in Montana, he was at the Blackfeet Agency from 1964 to 1967 as administrative manager.

Proposed amendments to the regulations governing the enrollment of Alaska Natives under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, as amended, were published in the Federal Register, June 4, 1976 Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The proposed revision of the regulations is for the purpose of permitting the filing and review of applications for enrollment pursuant to the Act of January 2, 1976. This Act re-opened the rolls for those persons who missed the original enrollment deadline of March 30, 1973.

Eligibility criteria for enrollment are the same as for the first enrollment. In general, this means that a person must be at least one-quarter degree or more Alaska Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut blood --or a combination, thereof --and living on December 18, 1971.

The Settlement Act granted Alaska Natives 40 million acres of land and nearly a billion dollars. Comments, suggestions or objections regarding the proposed regulations should be sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C. 20245 within 30 days after publication.

"Walk the High Iron," a documentary film about American Indians learning the iron workers' trade, is now available for use by Indian organizations from Bureau of Indian Affairs Area Offices.

The 28-minute film, which was cited for excellence at the 1975 Chicago International Film Festival, shows Indian trainees at a special school operated by the International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers under a contract with the BIA.

The school at East Gary, Indiana, was started in 1972 as an approach to career development for Indians at least 31 years of age who might not be eligible for other apprenticeship opportunities because of age. In the four years of operation some 400 reservation Indians have learned ironworking through the l4-week course at the school.

Graduates of the course are placed in Iron Worker Locals across the country for further training as they work their way to a journeyman’s card.

Portions of the film were made at Ashland, Wisconsin and on the nearby Bad River Reservation.

The 16 mm color film was produced by the Film Documentary Institute of Washington, D.C. Mark Reardon was the writer and executive producer.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointments of two members of the Flathead Indian Tribe as BIA Agency

Superintendents.

Stephen A. Lozar, 50, has been named Superintendent of the Crow Agency in Montana and Wyman J. McDonald appointed Superintendent of the Fort Hall Agency in Idaho.

Lozar, an Army veteran, has been Superintendent of the Western Washington Agency and previously was in charge of the Colorado River Agency. He began his career with the BIA in 1954 and has worked in the Portland and Sacramento Area Offices and the Umatilla, Flathead and Wind River Agencies.

McDonald has been Superintendent of the Mescalero Apache Agency in New Mexico. He has worked with Indian Community Action Programs in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, was an EDA Program Development Specialist with the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. and worked in various BIA agencies.

A Marin Corps veteran, McDonald is a 1962 graduate of the University of Montana and in 1968 completed the Department of the Interior Managers Developmental Program. He is 38.

Both Lozar and McDonald are natives of St. Ignatius, Montana.

A plan for the distribution of more than $1.5 million awarded to the Yakima Indian Tribe by the Indian Claims Commission is being published in the Federal Register, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

The award is additional compensation for land ceded by the Yakima Nation in 1859.

According to the plan, approved by Congress and made effective May 13, 1976, the funds will be distributed on a per capita basis to the enrolled members of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation.