OPA

A 15-year employee at the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Turtle Mountain Agency, Belcourt, North Dakota, has been named Agency Superintendent. He is Fred E. Gillis, a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Tribe.

Gillis, who has been acting superintendent the past five months, has held a variety of positions at the agency since his first employment there in 1959. He has been the administrative manager, realty officer and legal clerk. He started as a clerk-steno.

A graduate of the Bureau's Haskell Institute, Gillis attended night classes at North Dakota State University to earn a bachelor's degree in business administration. He also completed in-service training in management, basic supervision, labor management and EEO counseling.

Gillis, 39, worked at the Fort Totten and Fort Berthold Agencies before coming to the Turtle Mountain Agency. His wife, Myrtle, is a teacher at the Turtle Mountain Elementary School. He has two sons and two daughters.

Gillis is a charter member of the Belcourt Knights of Columbus.

The tribal plan for the distribution and use of more than $1.8 million awarded to the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians by the Indian Claims Commission was published in the Federal Register March 13.

The award represents payment for two tracts of land that were lost to the Band as a result of erroneous surveys of boundaries of the Red Lake Reservation in the periods 1883 to 1903 and 1885 to 1907.

Before payment of any judgment funds can be made, it is required that a plan for distribution and use of the funds be prepared and submitted to Congress for approval.

The plan of the Red Lake Band was approved on February 2, 1975, to become effective February 3. It calls for a per capita distribution of 80 percent of the judgment funds to tribal members.

The remaining 20 percent will be utilized in four existing tribal programs and a new tribal program to provide services for juveniles and the elderly. The existing programs are the Tribal Scholarship/Incentive Program, Tribal Credit Program, Tribal Industrial Development program and the Tribal Burial Allowance Program.

The regulations provide that as soon as possible after the approval date of the plan, the Red Lake Band of Chippewas post copies of the proposed tribal membership roll for 30 days during which any person may appeal the inclusion or omission of any name on or from the roll. Appeals will be handled in accord with procedures established by the Red Lake Tribal Council and approved by the Secretary of the Interior.

A plan for the distribution and use of more than $200,000 awarded to Seneca Indians by the Indian Claims Commission is being published in the Federal Register, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs Raymond V. Butler announced today.

The award is for certain land areas in New York State sold by the Indians between 1802 and 1826. The funds are to be divided between the Seneca Nation of Indians and the Tonawanda Band of Senecas on the basis of their respective tribal memberships as of January 29, 1977, the effective date of this plan.

According to the plan approved by Congress, the membership of the two tribes will be brought current to provide the basis for division between the two tribes.

The Seneca Nation share will be distributed on a per capita basis to the members.

The Tonawanda share will be held and continue to be invested by the Secretary until such time as a further plan for disposition of the funds is approved by Congress.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of Juanita Cata as Assistant Area Director (Education) for the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Albuquerque Area. She has held this position in an acting capacity since the retirement of Henry Wall.

Cata, a member of the San Juan Pueblo, has completed Ph. D. course requirements at the University of Albuquerque. She graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1961 and earned a Master's in elementary education from the same university in 1967.

As a research assistant for the University of New Mexico she was the author of three units of the Navajo Social Studies Curriculum Project, culturally based materials designed to meet the special needs of Navajo students. She also helped in producing two background books to be used at White House conferences on children and youth.

She has six years of teaching experiences in the Albuquerque Public school system and has taught courses in bilingual education and cultural awareness at the graduate level.

Regulations for the implementation of the Indian Business Development Program were published in the Federal Register and made effective on December 27, 1974, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson made the effective date simultaneous with publication to avoid any loss of opportunity caused by delay.

The purpose of the program is to promote Indian-owned profit-making businesses that benefit Indian reservations and communities. It provides equity capital through non-reimbursable grants. The program was established by Title IV of the Indian Financing Act of 1974. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1975 an appropriation of $10 million is available.

Grants cannot exceed 40 percent of the total financing required or $50,000 -- whichever is the lesser. Also, grants can only be made to applicants unable to find adequate financing from other sources.

Application forms and additional information about the program can be obtained from the Bureau of Indian Affairs Agency Superintendents.

Leo M. Krulitz, the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior, said today that unless Indian tribes can fully utilize their natural resources, the opportunity to determine their own future will hold little promise for them.

In an address to the two-day conference of the Federal Bar Association in Phoenix, Arizona, on Indian law, Krulitz said: "Self-determination will mean little to many Native Americans if the Federal trustee does not insure that water rights are preserved.

"Water is often critical to a full utilization of a tribe's other natural resources. Without it Indian tribes may be prevented from pursuing agricultural development, ranching, and mineral exploration and production."

Krulitz said that just as the late 1960's saw a marked increase in our awareness of the environmental implications of our actions, the late 1970's will be seen as the years in which the public becomes aware of the rights of Indians to participate to the full extent of their rights in the wealth of our Nation.

"From Maine to Alaska, Indians are asserting rights denied them for generations, rights which have been too easily ignored in the face of conflicting public policies," he said.

”President Carter, Secretary Andrus, and I are fully conscious of the Federal Government's trust responsibilities to Native Americans," he said. "We are intent upon seeing these responsibilities fulfilled."

Among the various alternatives in such cases he said that the Department's tentative posture is preference for the tribes to intervene with their own counsel. "Only in this way," he said, "can they be fully satisfied that their individual positions are asserted as forcefully as possible."

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13--A group of Native American leaders, brought together through the National American Indian Council, today announced their plans to purchase the historic Willard Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue from its New York owners for $7 million.

The building will become national headquarters for NAIC an umbrella organization representing 800,000 American Indians through 1,500 local and regional groups. Other Native American groups also will have offices there.

Helen Marie Klein, a spokeswoman for the group, said a portion of the Willard also will be devoted to exhibits and offices of the International Cultural and Trade Center

The facade of the Willard will be preserved in keeping with its status as a building of national historic significance.

"Ownership of the Willard means the First Americans can make a contribution to the preservation of an important part of the city's and nation's history," said Ms. Klein.

"Through it we will be able to extend the culture of our people and others around the world to the people who live in and visit Washington.

“And, as a practical matter, it will create a permanent home in the city where programs affecting American Indians can be created and administered," she said

The plans are to devote the first three floors to offices and meeting rooms and ICTC exhibits.

The upper seven floors will be renovated as hotel space. The purchasing group is discussing a management contract with a leading hotel chain.

Until the Willard ran into financial difficulty which forced its closing in mid-1968, it had a long and colorful history and a reputation for fine food and hospitality.

The original Willard, replaced by the present structure which was built starting in 1901, was home to many famous American and foreign guests.

President-elect Abraham Lincoln and his family stayed there, as did U.S. Grant and Calvin Coolidge. Charles Dickens visited at the Willard and Walt Whitman wrote a poem at the bar. Jenny Lind sang there, and the first Japanese Embassy was located in the hotel

Since its closing, the Willard has been the center of controversy and legal battles between commercial developers who planned to strip it of its facade, gut the interior, and create a modern office building, and civic groups determined to preserve the historic structure.

The International Cultural and Trade Center, to be the first non-Indian tenant, was formed in 1970 by Washington Oriental art dealer Simon Kriger, who is its chairman. Ms. Klein serves as ICTC president.

The ICTC was conceived as a means of building bridges of understanding and mutual respect between the peoples of all continents through closer cultural and trade relationships.

Funeral services were held January 9 for the last full-blooded member of the Mandan Indian Tribe, Mrs. Mattie Grinnell, who lived to be 108 years old. Mrs. Grinnell died January 6 at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Rose Fournier, in Twin Buttes, North Dakota.

Living through more than a century of tremendous changes for her people and her land, Mrs. Grinnell retained to the end an amazing vitality, charm and spirit.

In 1968 at the age of 101 she took part in the Poor People's March on Washington. She tended a large garden every summer and prided herself on having "the cleanest garden around Twin Buttes." She was very interested in the young and found the Vietnam War upsetting. She said that she prayed every day for peace in the world. Her daughter said that she remained alert and in good health during her last year.

Mrs. Grinnell had her own theory on her longevity. "I still use Indian medicine. That's why I'm over 100 years old."

She had a great appreciation for her Indian heritage. She knew the religious ceremonies, dances and legends and was, as she asserted, the only one who knew how to prepare the corn balls and sun-dried meat used in tribal ceremonies. She acknowledged that education was very important for the young, but added that her people should make more use of what they had been taught by tradition.

Mrs. Grinnell, herself, had only four years of schooling. She had to drop out when her father became ill and she was needed to help with the work at home. A few years before her death she jokingly remarked that if she had gone 12 years she would have been in the White House.

She was almost certainly the last person to receive approval for a Civil War Widow's pension. She received hers in 1971 when friends and Bureau of Indian Affairs officials urged her to submit an application.

Born at Like-A-Fish-Hook village on the Fort Berthold Reservation one year after the Civil War, Mrs. Grinnell was married twice. Her first husband, John Nagel, died in 1904. He was a German immigrant farmer who had served with the Third Regiment of the Missouri Volunteer Cavalry from 1861 to 1864. Her marriage to Charles Grinnell in 1907 ended in divorce in 1935.

She is survived by four children, all from her first marriage, 40 grandchildren, 28 great grandchildren and 5 great, great grandchildren. Three children from her second marriage are now deceased.

Three years ago an article about Mrs. Grinnell was published in "North Dakota Horizons." The author wrote of her that she had the "face of nobility, proud, lined with the passing of 105 winters and the pains of her people, regal, shadowed with the timeless despair of the reservations, but calm and stoic in quiet acceptance of burdens."

She lived a full life.

The selection of Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson as one of America's ten outstanding young men was described today as "symbolic of the achievements and progress of all American Indians," by Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton.

"One of the reasons Morrie was given this honor was because he overcame the odds against a poor Athabascan Indian from the fish camps of the Yukon River. Today there are thousands of Indians overcoming similar odds and moving towards greatness in various fields," Morton said.

Announcement of the selection of Thompson by the U. S. Junior Chamber of Commerce was made January 12. The brief citation for him said that he "overcame great odds to distinguish himself as one of the Nation's most effective spokesmen for his people, the American Indian." It also noted that he is the youngest Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the 140 year history of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Thompson, 35, was the first Alaskan Native to be Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in that state. He was appointed to that position in 1971 after serving as a special assistant for Indian Affairs to former Interior Secretary Walter J. Hickel. He was sworn in as Commissioner of Indian Affairs December 3, 1973.

"The Indian community has taken substantial strides toward self-determination under Commissioner Thompson's leadership," Morton said.

He noted that two very important pieces of legislation had been enacted: The Indian Financing Act and the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act. He also pointed out that most of the major positions in the Bureau have been filled with Indians, that the number of Indian college students has surged upward and that a backlog of Indian rights issues is being systematically unjammed.

"There are still many problems to be solved," Morton said, "but the Indian community is moving faster than ever toward the solutions. Morris Thompson can take a lot of credit for this progress. He is certainly deserving of this honor given him by the U.S. Junior Chamber. I am sure he sees it as a tribute to all American Indians and a recognition of their hopes for further progress."

Burton A. Rider, a Gros Ventre/Cree Indian, has been appointed Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Fort Peck Agency in Northern Montana. Since 1971 he has been the Employment assistance Officer for the Minneapolis Area, which includes Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

A native of Harlem, Montana, Burton has more than 20 years’ experience with the Bureau. Since 1959 he has held various positions in relocation and employment assistance work in Arizona, Utah, South Dakota, Nebraska, and New Mexico.

Burton is a graduate of the Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas and also attended Bacone College, Bacone, Oklahoma. He has completed training in the Bureau's Management Training Institute. He is a veteran, is married, and has one daughter.

Burton's appointment at Fort Peck becomes effective January 19. He succeeds William Benjamin who was named Director of the Hopi-Navajo Joint Use Office.