OPA

Leaders of Indian-owned-and-operated manufacturing firms will have the opportunity to meet and talk business with representatives of some of America's corporate giants in Chicago, October 15-16.

Host firms for the two-day session, designed to assist the Indian manufacturers develop new markets, will include the Quaker Oats Company, Zenith Corporation, Illinois Tool Company, the Brunswick Corporation and Standard Oil of Indiana. Representatives from the Santa Fe Railroad, Sears, Montgomery Wards and other companies will participate in the program.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs' Division of Indian Business Enterprise is coordinating the session.

In the past five years about 250 on-going manufacturing industries have been developed on Indian reservations. Most of these are branch operations of larger organizations, but about 50 are smaller, Indian-owned-and-operated companies.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson said that he appreciated the willingness of the larger corporations to work with the Indian communities. "Unemployment," he said, "is still a major problem on reservations and the development of productive jobs, not make-work, is the only long range solution to this situation. I am confident that, given the opportunity, Indian industries can work in competitive, mutually beneficial ways with other American enterprises."

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that proposed regulations governing the administration and use of more million for education or socio-economic programs benefitting the Osage Indian Tribe of Oklahoma have been published in the Federal Register.

The funds are part of a $13,250,000 award made to the tribe by the Indian Claims Commission for lands ceded by the tribe under treaties made more than 150 years ago. The balance of the award was distributed, as directed by Congress, on a per capita basis to tribal members.

According to the proposed regulations, only the interest or income from the fund will be expended and only descendants of persons listed on a 1908 tribal roll are eligible for assistance from the fund.

Written comments, suggestions or objections concerning the proposed may be submitted to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs within 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that a plan for the use and distribution of more than $600,000 awarded by the Indian Claims Commission to the Northern Tonto Apache Indians is being published in the Federal Register.

The award represents payment for lands taken by the United States in 1873 and 1875.

According to the plan, approved by Congress with an effective date of September 5, 1975, the funds will be divided between two successor groups of the Northern Tonto Apache Tribe. The Yavapai Apache Community of the Camp Verde Reservation in Arizona will receive 88 percent and the balance will go to the smaller Yavapai-Tonto Apache Community of Payson, Arizona.

The Camp Verde Community will make a per capita distribution of 80 percent of their share of the funds to community members and will use the remaining 20 percent for economic development, community and tribal government purposes.

The Payson Community will distribute 25 percent of their funds on a per capita basis and program the rest for tribal and community purposes.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that the Oglala Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota has been given approximately 1,600 acres of excess Government land within the reservation boundaries. Notice of the transfer, under the Federal Property and Administration Services Act as amended earlier this year, is being published in the Federal Register.

Title to the land will be held by the Secretary of the Interior in trust for the tribe.

The 17 tracts making up the total had been purchased at various times for use by Bureau of Indian Affairs' schools on the reservation. The land provided both pasture and garden areas needed for agricultural courses taught in the schools until the mid-1950.

The property, which was declared excess to the needs of the Bureau, will be administered in the same way as other tribal land held in trust for the benefit and use of the tribe.

Dr. Noah Allen, a Creek Indian, has been named Superintendent of the Phoenix Indian High School, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Allen, who is currently serving as the Acting Director of Indian Education Programs for the Bureau of Indian Affairs is expected to assume his duties in Phoenix in early November. Before coming to Washington, D.C. for his present assignment, Allen was Executive Director of the National Indian Education Association.

A native of Bristow, Oklahoma, Allen earned his Doctorate at the University of Oregon in 1965. He received his Master’s in Education from the Kansas State University and his Bachelor's from the University of Wichita.

An outstanding athlete, Allen has been athletic director at the Pacific University, Oregon; Wichita State University, Kansas and the Haskell Indian Junior College at Lawrence, Kansas. He began his career as a coach and instructor at Winfield High School, Winfield, Kansas in 1950. He was a teacher supervisor at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1974-75.

Allen, 47, has been active in many special programs for Indian people. He is a Navy veteran of World War II.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson has announced the appointment of a new Deputy Area Director for the BIA's Aberdeen Area. He is Richard D. Drapeaux, a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe Drapeaux has been the Housing Development Officer for the Area, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska.

A graduate of South Dakota State University, Drapeaux began his career with the Bureau as a high school teacher on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1952.

Drapeaux has worked at a number of the agencies in the area in housing, employment assistance and vocational guidance.

Legislation to add some 370,000 acres of land to Indian tribal holdings was described by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson as "a needed step toward better management and use of the land."

Public Law 94-114, signed by President Ford October 17, transfers certain tracts of "submarginal" land purchased by the United States in the 1930's for tribal uses.

The 17 Indian tribes involved have had the use of the land but have been limited in its development and use because of the lack of clear title.

The land now is to be held in trust by the United States for the affected Indian tribes and will be managed in the same way as other reservation or Indian trust land.

The purchase of these lands by the United States was part of a national program to retire from private cultivation land which was low in productivity or otherwise ill-suited for farming operations. A total of approximately 11 million acres was acquired under the program. Most of it is now under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management or various states or municipalities.

Under the Act the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation, Montana received more than 85,000 acres and the Navajo Tribe acquired almost 70,000 acres in New Mexico.

Additions to other reservations were as follows: Bad River, Wisconsin, 13,149 acres; Blackfeet, Montana, 9,037; Cheyenne River, South Dakota, 3,739; Crow Creek, South Dakota, 19,170; Lower Brule, South Dakota, 13,210; Fort Totten, North Dakota, 1,425;Fort Belknap, Montana, 25,531; Lac Courte Oreilles, Wisconsin, 13,185; L'Anse, Michigan, 4,017; White Earth, Minnesota, 28,545; Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 18,065; Rosebud, South Dakota, 28,735; Fort Hall, Idaho, 8,712 and Standing Rock, North Dakota, 10,256. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, which does not have a reservation in the technical sense, also received 18,750 acres.

Under a separate Act, also signed by the President October 17, the Laguna Pueblo Tribe of New Mexico received approximately 520 acres of land within the present reservation boundaries. Most of this land had been under the administration of the Bureau of Land Management.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that a meeting for Alaska Natives residing outside of Alaska will be held in Seattle, November 19.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss matters pertaining to the establishment of the 13th Regional Corporation by Alaska Natives under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

Those Alaska Natives of the "lower 48" states who chose to enroll in the 13th region will receive a pro-rata share of the approximately $1 billion cash settlement provided for the Act. They will not share in the land selection of 40 million acres of federally owned land in Alaska awarded the Natives under the Act.

Records indicate that more than three-fourths of the non-resident Alaska Natives live in the Seattle area.

Representatives of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of the Interior's Office of the Solicitor will provide information at the meeting on the formation of the 13th region, voting for incorporators, future distribution of funds and the new election of enrolling in the 13th Or one of the 12 other regions in Alaska.

Invitations have been mailed to all non-resident Alaska Native enrollees for the meeting at the Seattle Center.

Marcellus M. Chouteau, a member of the Kaw Indian Tribe, has been named Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs agency at Pawnee, Oklahoma, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today.

Chouteau, who has been Program Officer for the Anadarko Area (Western Oklahoma and Kansas), succeeds James Hale who has retired. A World War II Army veteran, Chouteau has worked for the Bureau since 1964. He has held increasingly responsible positions, mostly in accounting and fiscal fields, in Washington, D.C., Muskogee, Oklahoma, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Chouteau, 53, is a graduate of the Oklahoma school of Business and Accounting and has attended Oklahoma State University and Northeastern Oklahoma State.

A full-blooded Navajo Indian, Wilson Barber, Jr., has been appointed Superintendent of the BIA Cheyenne River Agency at Eagle Butte, South Dakota, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today. His appointment will be effective December 7.

Barber, 34, has been Realty Officer at the Eastern Navajo Agency in New Mexico. He succeeds Thomas Claymore who has retired.

Barber worked for the Navajo Tribe as a Department Supervisor before taking a position with the BIA Navajo Area Office in 1967.