OPA

The actual celebration -- the throwing of a switch to turn on electric power at Puertocito -- takes place August 26, but the real significance of the event extends both ways in time from that date, according to the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Puertocito is a remote Indian reservation in west central New Mexico, the home of the Alamo Navajos, a tribal group separated from the main or "Big Navajo" Reservation 100 miles to the north during the Navajo's struggles with Kit Carson and the U.S. Cavalry 100 years ago.

The reservation's 155 families live scattered over 52,000 acres in an arid region about 60 miles from the county seat of Socorro, N. M.A matriarchal society, they have survived through subsistence farming, grazing and performing seasonal labor at neighboring farms and ranches. They are named for a local spring, Alamo Spring, Alamo being the Spanish word for cottonwood.

In recent years this group has been strengthening its ties with the Big Navajo government and sends a representative to Navajo Tribal Council meetings at Window Rock, Ariz. In turn, the Big Navajo have put their self-help program -- the Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity (ONEO) -- to work at Puertocito.

With ONEO assistance the people of Puertocito, under a mutual-help program, constructed 60 new houses to replace the traditional single room hogans and shacks that had been their homes. Designed and built by the Navajos themselves, the buildings are constructed of native stone or adobe (mud) brick. By suburban standards they are exceedingly modest. By Puertocito standards they are a giant step forward.

As the building program progressed, the Alamo Navajos contacted the Socorro Rural Electric Cooperative, which agreed to bring in electric power if 100 families would subscribe. One hundred families did, and the power line, financed by a Rural Electrification Administration loan to the Cooperative, was started toward Puertocito.

At the same time the Bureau of Indian Affairs agreed to provide the materials, tools, and supervision for wiring the individual houses. A separate wiring plan was required for each house. ONEO provided local Indian labor under a manpower training program. The home wiring program began Jan. 21, 1967 and was completed April 29.

It produced, at a cost of $156 a house, adequately wired dwellings -- meeting all electrical code requirements except for number of outlets -- and ten Navajos who earned $1.25 an hour while acquiring the skills to make them qualified electrician's helpers. These men not only have increased employment opportunities in the area but have the skills necessary to maintain an electrical system which operates in ways completely mysterious to most residents of the community. Their first jobs are likely to come in the expansion of the new system to additional Indian homes.

For the future, the immediate impact of electricity at Puertocito is not difficult to comprehend. Electric lights, refrigerators, washing machines, mixers and the many other genies of the kilowatt will move the Alamo Navajos a big step closer to a standard of living approaching the national average.

But much more than convenience and ease of living is involved. Through improved communications, especially television and radio, the aura of isolation that has compounded the difficulties of helping these people toward an understanding of the culture and habits of mid-century Americans will be reduced.

When Puertocito youngsters leave for Magdalena, 35 miles to the south, where they attend public school and stay in a BIA dormitory, they will have a better understanding of what to expect in this new environment. This understanding is expected to cushion the shock of this new experience and result in better school enrollment and attendance.

A similar acquisition of cultural understanding will assist the adults in the community as they press forward with the most difficult task of seeking economic and social equality for themselves and their community. The new ideas and new developments which have resulted from the improved working relationship with Big Navajo organizations should be accelerated as knowledge and understanding open new options for community improvement.

Actual day-to-day communications with the surrounding communities will be greatly improved by a two-way radio the Cooperative plans to install at Puertocito.

Indicative of the spirit of progress now in evidence at Puertocito is the work underway with the Indian Health Division of the Public Health Service to plan a water system for the community.

Receipts from sales of Indian timber totaled a record high of $15.9 million in Fiscal Year 1967, which ended last June 30, the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs announced today.

This was an increase of nearly $1.6 million over Fiscal Year 1966, which was itself a record year, with an increase of $2 million over Fiscal Year 1965.

The Bureau also reported that in the last five years, the volume of Indian timber cut increased by 258 million board feet and stumpage receipts increased by $7.6 million, as shown by Fiscal Year 1967 and 1962 totals.

In Fiscal Year 1967, increased timber sale activity in the Billings, Mont. area returned more than double the income of the previous year. Unfortunately, this was not the case in California, where market conditions resulted in volume cut being less than half the Fiscal Year 1966 harvest.

Fiscal Year 1967 also reflected income from the first large Indian timber sale in Alaska, on the Annette Islands Reserve in the Juneau area, and sales from public domain allotments in the Haines area.

The volume harvested in Fiscal Year 1967 was slightly less than the previous year; 803 million board feet compared to 848 for Fiscal Year 1966.

However, good market conditions in most areas provided for the increased income.

From Alaska to Florida, resource managers for the Department of the Interior are watchfully scanning snow and rainfall figures as the first signs of spring appear- - -hoping that last year's disastrous fire record will not recur in 1967.

Over most of the 550 million acres managed by Interior agencies, 1966 was called the worst fire year since 1957, year of the great Alaska fires. Paradoxically, 1965 had been one of the lightest years on record for fire damage. And the prime factor, as usual appeared to be the weather.

A wet winter last year in the Pacific Northwest and other regions brought forth a thick, lush carpet of annual grasses and forest undergrowth, already luxuriant after a damp 1965. Then the rains stopped. Late spring and summer were unusually warm and dry. The dense grass and brush "cured" into tinder, ready for trouble, and it came.

Estimates of damage to Interior-managed lands alone during 1966 ran close to $15 million, not including the more than $7.5 million spent on suppression of fires. Nearly 1 million acres were swept by wildfire. In many instances, notably within the national parks and in other areas heavily used by wildlife, no meaningful dollar figure could be fixed for the losses that occurred--but the impact will continue to be felt.

Of the 2,914 fires recorded on Interior's lands during the year, 1,678 were attributed to lightning and 1,236 to human activity. Firefighters for the Bureau of Land Management, which administers most of the territory and experienced most of the damage, credited "intensive fire prevention programs and apparent public cooperation" for holding down the incidence of man-caused fires.

Many of the worst fires were man-caused, however. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, and Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife blamed people for most of the damage sustained by their areas during the year. Causes ranged from careless handling of machinery to letting trash fires get out of control, and in at least one notable case, to arson.

The year's costliest fire on Interior-managed lands occurred in August, when a man-caused blaze spread through heavy timber along both sides of Oxbow Ridge, about 25 miles southwest of Eugene, Ore. Eventually it reached across 41,600 acres of public and private timberlands, with heavy losses of prime Douglas fir. BLM lands comprised about 24, 000 acres of this total, and the Bureau estimated its timber loss at $7 million.

In grazing country south of Twin Falls, Idaho, a midsummer grass fire ignited by lightning raced across 45, 000 acres in less than six hours. When it finally was brought under control, this blaze had burned 52, 200 acres, some 30 percent Federally owned. Damage totaled close to $1. 25 million, including the loss of more than 1, 000 head of sheep and cattle and 100 miles of range fence. "The loss of wildlife habitat and recreation values will be felt for years," BLM officials said of this fire.

But the farthest-reaching and longest-burning of all the year's fires-- in fact, the worst since 1957 on Interior-managed lands--occurred in east central Alaska, near the Canadian border. Started by lightning, it burned across 203, 000 acres of caribou range and timber for nearly three months, despite the best efforts of smokejumpers, ground crewmen and aircraft armed with chemical fire retardants. Damages were estimated at about $2 million. It destroyed large areas of grazing land which had supported the caribou herds on which many of the natives of Alaska and the neighboring Yukon Territory depend for food, plus some prime recreation and hunting grounds for both Alaskans and tourists.

Some of the firefighters employed in battling this blaze were flown in from as far away as Boise, Idaho, where BLM maintains an Interagency Fire Center. This installation, in its first full year of operation, had its hands full during 1966 trying to control blazes that covered more than the total acreage burned on BLM lands during all four years from 1962 through 1965.

Two of the largest fires on national park lands were man-caused, occurring in Everglades National Park, Fla., during April and May. They scorched more than 2,700 acres of grassland important to the survival of native wildlife, already decimated by the effects of a several-year drought.

Yellowstone National Park, the Nation's oldest and perhaps its best loved, was damaged by two lightning fires which burned for three days late in July across 245 acres in Montana and Wyoming.

Like BLM, the National Park Service said most fires were kept small by fast and aggressive action on the part of fire control crews, and by use of helicopters and other aircraft for detection and suppression.

Indian lands also suffered a higher incidence of fires, and a higher damage figure, than in the two previous years. The chief blame was as signed to people who had started out to burn piles of debris and let the blazes get out of control. Alert fire crews held all but 17 of the 1,251 fires on Indian lands to less than 300 acres. Considering problems caused by the weather, BIA authorities felt they got off about as well as could be expected--somewhere near the long term average.

On wildlife refuges and game ranges managed by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, 1966 was rated the fourth best in 24 years of reporting. Still, more than 12,700 acres were burned in 25 States.

“The general public is by far the greatest cause of fires on Bureau lands," said a summary report prepared by BSFW. "Over 75 percent of the fires were man-caused, mostly by neighbors, through land occupancy and equipment." The two largest fire s on these lands were a 7,250-acre blaze started accidentally by a welder in Idaho, and a 1,273 -acre forest fire in South Carolina touched off by an arsonist. Together, these accounted for 68 percent of the total area burned on Bureau lands during 1966, and more than 50 percent of the values lost.

Vincent Price, the actor and art connoisseur, has accepted reappointment to another 4-year term on the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and has been elected chairman by the other members, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall announced today.

The Secretary also announced the appointment to the Board of Royal Brown Hassrick, widely known anthropologist and former curator of American and American Indian art in the Denver Art Museum, to succeed Dr. Frederick J. Dockstader, director of the Museum of American Indians, New York.

Dr. Dockstader has been chairman of the Board since 1962 and a member for many years.

Secretary Udall wrote Dr. Dockstader a letter of appreciation for his years of service in the effort to maintain high standards of workmanship for Indian arts and crafts and at the same time assist in developing policies and procedures to expand the market for such products.

Price, who lives in Los Angeles, has been a member (commissioner) of the Board since 1962, having first been appointed to fill an unexpired term.

He has established the Vincent Price Awards in Creative Writing, which are given annually at the Institute of American Indian Arts, operated by the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs at Santa Fe, N. M.

Activities of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board will not be new to Hassrick. He served as assistant general manager for the Board in Denver in 1952-54 and as curator of the Interior Department's Southern Plains Indian Museum at Anadarko, Okla., in 1948-52.

Hassrick was born in Ocean City, N. J., July graduated with a B.A. degree from Dartmouth College work at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania number of books on Indian affairs. 10, 1917. He was and did postgraduate He is the author of a number of books on Indian Affairs.

He served as Executive Director of the Association on American Indian Affairs in 1942-44, was with the Office of War Information in 1944-45, and in the Army in 1945.

He joined the staff of the Denver Art Museum in 1955, following his service with the Interior Department. He makes his home at Lone Star Ranch, Elizabeth, Colo.

Arizona Indians have formed the first organization in the country designed to involve all of the Indian reservations in a State in a program for mutual planning and economic development help, Secretary Udall said today.

Called the Indian Development District of Arizona, the group initially is made up of nine of the 17 reservations in Arizona, combined into a statewide corporation that will enable Indian tribes to qualify for Economic Development Administration districting funds.

Rupert Parker, Hualapai leader from the Grand Canyon country, who has been elected first president of the organization, says that other tribal groups are expected to join soon.

The program is the result of the combined efforts of local Bureau of Indian Affairs officials under Phoenix Area Director W. Wade Head, and EDA personnel, working with Arizona's Governor Jack Williams.

The state-chartered corporation, IDDA, is expected to result in the development of strategically located planning areas. There will be from three to five of these initially, with more to follow.

Each area will hire professional staff funded by EDA under title IV of the EDA Act, to cover up to 75 percent of costs. The annual IDDA budget is estimated at about $200,000. The remaining 25 percent of costs are covered by in-kind contributions from the planning area, and includes outlays for office space, desks, typewriters, supplies and related items.

Each associated tribe has one representative on the IDDA board of directors. In addition to President Parker, they include:

Robert Mackett, Papago, and Howard Schurz, Salt River, vice presidents; Alexander Lewis, Gila River, secretary-treasurer; Jay Gould, Colorado River; Reeves Steele, San Carlos Apache; Fred Banashley, White Mountain Apache; Clinton Pattea, Fort McDowell; and Llewellyn Barrackman, Fort Mohave.

Once established, the planning area administration committee will hire a professional staff. The committee will be made up of area board members plus an additional member from each area reservation. This group in turn will then select up to an equal number of non-Indians from neighboring communities bordering the reservations.

The result, according to BIA Area Director Head, will be to foster Indian and non-Indian interaction, working for a common objective. This is significant when it is realized that in Arizona, where only Indian reservations are designated as eligible to receive assistance from EDA programs, 17 percent of- the land is privately owned while nearly 30 percent is Indian owned.

Initial coordination of the plan is being provided by a Navajo Indian, Art Hubbard, on Governor Williams' staff. This is a temporary arrangement until IDDA becomes operational.

When the professional staffs are set up, each will layout economic development needs in its area and then research and implement indicated planning. The staffs will also assist in the preparation of applications for technical assistance and funding from various Government and private sources. ln the end, though, the tribes themselves will be the applicants for such help.

Arizona's three state universities are expected to take part in the IDDA program, and planning committees may call on business and engineering consultants for further advice.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall next week will be in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona on water resource and park missions and to see some Indian achievements.

Udall will fly to Denver Tuesday morning, September 5, and will hold a news conference there upon his arrival.

The secretary then will be flown to Cheyenne, where he will meet with Gov. Stanley Hathaway of Wyoming at a noon luncheon.

Returning to Denver, Udall will see Gov. John A. Love, then will speak at 10:30 Wednesday morning to a national conference of State and Federal Water officials at the Denver Hilton Hotel.

At 11:30 Wednesday, September 6, the secretary will leave Denver by plane for Santa Fe, N.M., where he will be met by Walter O. Olson, area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs; Will Rogers, Jr., a special assistant to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and a former congressman from California; and officials of the Cochiti Pueblo.

The party will tour the Cochiti Pueblo, including a visit to the site to Cochiti Dam, now under construction, with return to Santa Fe through the Santa Domingo Pueblo.

During the afternoon Wednesday, Secretary Udall plans a meeting in Santa Fe with Gov. David F. Cargo of New Mexico.

Early on Thursday, September 7, the secretary is to arrive in Gallup, N.M., to be met by Bureau of Indian Affairs officials and officials of the Zuni Pueblo. He will tour the Zuni village and meet with members of the Zuni Pueblo Council. At 10 a.m., Udall will dedicate the Blackrock Industrial Park, being developed by the Zunis. Ground was broken last week for the first industrial plant at the park.

After the industrial park exercises, Secretary Udall and his party plan a visit at about noon to Window Rock, Ariz., 'headquarters for the Navajo Area Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and to attend a barbeque and the Navajo Fair there.

At 4 p.m. on Thursday, Udall will dedicate the Hubbell Trading Post' National Historic Site at Ganado, Ari-zona, and then go to Phoenix to spend the night.

The secretary plans to fly back to Washington on Friday, Sept. 8

The Department of the Interior announced today several proposed amendments to the Code of Federal Regulations governing the election of Osage Tribal officers.

Under the proposed rule changes, the requirement for a nominating convention in Osage County, Okla., would be eliminated and nominations would be accepted from any group of at least 25 qualified Osage voters. Write-in candidates would be barred.

Other amendments would limit the polling places to one, in conformity with the long accepted practice of the tribe, and would simplify the counting procedure by using identical treatment for absentee ballots and those collected at the poll.

Candidates' nicknames could appear on the ballot, under one of the new regulations, but titles or professional designations would be forbidden. Another change provides for two witnesses to an absentee voter's signature in lieu of notarization.

The amendments make mandatory the destruction of ballots 180 days after an election, require at least one judge and two clerks on a tallying team, provide for delivery of the ballot box and keys to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Osage Agency Superintendent, and set forth procedures for handling invalidated ballots.

Finally, the amendments provide that only unsuccessful candidates for an elective office may challenge the election with respect to that office. A $500 deposit is required to cover the cost of a recount.

A notice of intention to adopt the amended regulations is being published in the Federal Register. Suggested changes and comments should be forwarded to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, D.C. 20242, within thirty days of the date of such publication.

The Department of the Interior is proposing amendments in the Federal regulations that govern elections to adopt or amend tribal constitutions for tribes organized under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Proposals also are being made to standardize procedures under which some 97 Indian tribes may petition the Secretary of the Interior or the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to authorize elections to amend their tribal constitutions.

The proposed new rules would revise Part 52, Title 25, Code of Federal Regulations and add a new Part 53. They have been published in the Federal Register as proposed rule making and interested parties are urged to comment.

The change affecting Part 52 concerns a provision of the Indian Reorganization Act, under which many Indian tribes have organized their constitutional governments. The Act provides that at least 30 percent of the persons entitled to vote must participate in constitutional elections called by the Secretary or the Commissioner if such elections are to be considered valid.

In the past, the 30 percent was based on voting lists comprised of all tribal members 21 years of age or over. As tribal members continue to move away from reservations for employment or education, it has become more difficult, and in some cases impossible, to achieve 30 percent participation. This has worked a hardship on tribal members, both on and off the reservation, who take an active interest in tribal government, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The proposed revision would require eligible voters to register before they become entitled to vote and would base the 30 percent determination upon the total number of those registered, rather than a list of adult tribal members. Also, procedures for filing absentee ballots would become simpler, substituting a certification form subscribed before two witnesses for the previous requirement of an oath taken in the presence of a notary public or other official qualified to administer oaths.

The amendment is intended to make voting in constitutional elections simpler and more equitable, BIA officials said, and may also increase Indian participation in local, State and national elections by familiarizing Indians with voter registration procedure.

The addition of a new Part 53, Title 25 CFR is designed to clarify and. standardize procedures to be followed by tribal members who have the right to petition the Secretary or the Commissioner to call a special election to amend a tribal constitution. In the past there has been no all-encompassing procedure for preparing and processing the petitions and inconsistencies and misunderstandings have resulted. The proposed new regulations would establish such rules as the format for petitions; procedures for their filing; and the manner of determining their validity.

The States we know as Nevada, Utah, and Colorado were once the hunting and warring grounds of numerous Indian tribes. Their stories are told in an illustrated, 24-page booklet just issued by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs -- Indians of the Lower Plateau.

Latest in a popular series of publications about the first inhabitants of the United States, the booklet describes aboriginal life in Utah and Nevada, where Indians had to summon all the stamina, intelligence and ingenuity they possessed to eke out a meager existence. Colorado Indians, blessed with more fish and game in their forested mountain glens, led a somewhat easier life.

Into this land of contrasts came white men, beating a path westward and bringing a new culture that soon clashed with the Indian pattern.

Today, descendants of the hardy tribesmen of the past still live in the tri-State area. The Bureau of Indian Affairs' new booklet tells about their life and explains the Bureau services they received.

Indians of the Lower Plateau is the 13th booklet in the series on Indians of various regions.

Other titles in the series are: Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts of Alaska; Indians of Arizona; Indians of California; Indians of the Central Plains; Indians of the Dakotas; Indians of the Great Lakes Area; Indians of the Gulf Coast states; Indians of Montana, Wyoming; Indians of New Mexico; Indians of North Carolina; Indians of the Northwest and Indians of Oklahoma.

Each is available at 15 cents a copy from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. A 25 percent discount is allowed on quantity orders of 100 or more, if mailed to one address.

The Seminole Indian Tribe of Florida, which once sent all its messages by runner, soon will become landlord for a plant that will be the world's largest manufacturer of electronic connectors for the telecommunication industry.

The Tribe today took part in ceremonies for the new plant at its Hollywood, Fla., reservation. The facility will be operated by Amphenol Corporation of Chicago. The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs served as the liaison agency that brought the Seminole Tribe and the company together.

A 32,400 square foot plant building was constructed on the ten-acre tract of land leased by Amphenol from the Seminoles in an agreement signed last June. About one-half the initial work force of 200 will be comprised of local Indians, the company announced.

Deputy Commissioner Theodore W. Taylor, who represented the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the dedication, had high praise for the cooperation of American industry in creating new jobs for Indians.

Taylor said: “The Amphenol experience is becoming increasingly typical as Indians develop the courage and know-how to successfully penetrate the business world. The Seminoles have proved once more that they are in the forefront of this movement. Today, the Tribe and the Amphenol Company already are looking ahead. This ten-acre site will permit plenty of expansion when the present plant reaches full operating capacity.

“We have great hopes for industrial development of Indian areas,” the Deputy Commissioner added. “There are now nearly 100 American companies operating plants of various sizes on Indian reservations or in nearby communities and providing employment for 7,000 Indians in their home areas. This is extremely important for those Indians who, through inexperience or fear of the unknown, do not choose to move to unfamiliar surroundings to find work. While the Bureau is providing employment assistance for reservation dwellers who move away for training and better jobs, many prefer employment on or near their reservations.

“The Bureau of Indian Affairs,” said Taylor, “is grateful for the confidence Amphenol has shown in the Indian people by deciding to establish this plant on the Hollywood Reservation. I believe the Seminoles have shown extremely good judgment in choosing to do business with this sound and farsighted company.”