Olympic
Scientific
Congress
kicks off
See Pages 6 and 7
Oregon daily
emerald
Thursday, July 19, 1984
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 86, Number 10
Millrace cleanup to begin
By David Carlson
Of the Emerald
Hoping to improve the park-like setting of
the Millrace and to make canoeing more en
joyable, the EMU Recreation Center has initiated
Millrace and canoe house renovation projects.
The first improvement is to clean the banks of
the Millrace, which runs parallel to Franklin
Boulevard across from the University, says Dexter
Simmons, manager of the EMU Recreation Center
and head of the center’s EMU Waterworks Canoe
Company.
Unruly and overhanging branches and
bushes will be trimmed on the Millrace from the
Coca-Cola production and manufacturing plant,
past the physical plant to the University’s Silva
warehouse storage facility, Simmons says.
The $1,848 project is being funded by the
Millrace Restoration Fund, a long-standing
University Foundation fund, says David Rowe,
University planner. The work will be done by the
physical plant and is due to begin by next week,
says fim Johnston, work control center coor
dinator for the physical plant.
Simmons stresses that the work to be done is
cosmetic and will have very little impact on the
vegetation.
“We are very sensitive to this project as an
environmental issue and to the fact that the ducks
need a habitat, so we are being extra cautious,”
he says.
Improvements also will be made this summer
on the Waterworks Canoe Company canoe house
near the Millrace duck ponds, Simmons says.
Workers will build a set of stairs up the
Millrace bank to the canoe house and mount a
silver canoe on the building to entice people to
canoe on the newly manicured millrace. This pro
ject is being funded from another long-standing
fund, the Canoe House Renovation Fund, and
will cost just over $1,000.
Students wishing to use the Waterworks
Canoe Company facilities may visit the canoe
house at 1395 Franklin Boulevard or call
686-4386. The canoe house is open daily through
September 3 from 11 a.m. to dusk. The rental fee
for canoes and kayaks is $2.50 an hour on the
Millrace or $14 per day for off-Millrace use. This
fee includes all equipment, and reservations are
recommended.
Astronomy professor dies
A longtime University professor of
astronomy and physics, known as “the father of
the modern physics department,” died Tuesday
afternoon.
Edwin G. Ebbighausen, 73, of 3150 Onyx St.,
died of kidney filure shortly after 5 o’clock at
Sacred Heart Hospital after suffering for three
years from cancer of the bone marrow, according
to his physician.
Ebbighausen taught classes in astronomy for
30 years before his retirement in 1976. He came to
Oregon in 1946 where he was hired by the
University as the first professor and sole
originator of the physics department, which had
', A 7!
Edwin G. Ebbighausen
been non-existent since the early Depression
years, according to Prof. Bernd Crasemann, pre
sent head of the physics department.
His specific areas of research were concerned
with the study of variable stars, remote stars that
revolve around and eclipse each other, and with
the study of stars with strong magnetic fields, or
double star systems.
Born and raised in Crokkston, Minn, in 1911,
Ebbighausen received his bachelor of science in
astronomy and mathematics at the University of
Minnesota in 1936. In August of the next year he
married Ardis Lundgren with whom he later had
two children in 1949 and 1953.
In 1940 he received his doctorate in
astronomy and physics from the University of
Chicago. Between 1939 and 1941, Ebbighausen
also instructed at Wilson College in
Chambersburg, Pa.
Later, in 1941, he transferred to the Universi
ty of Pittsburgh as an instructor and assistant pro
fessor for three years. In 1944, Ebbighausen left
and worked for a year as a research engineer for
Westinghouse Electronics Laboratory. At various
times during this period, he also taught
astronomy, navigation and meteorology at Buhl
Planetarium in Pittsburgh, under a loan arrange
ment with the University.
Ebbighausen’s professional activities include
serving as coordinator for the Oregon Science Im
provement Program and the American Associa
tion for the Advancement of Science between
1956 and 1968. During that period, he directed
the High School Science Demonstration Lecture
Program, supported by the Ford Foundation, and
also served as a visiting fellow in general educa
tion at Harvard University.
Ebbighausen later directed the Elementary
Physical Science Institute in 1961 during the
summer period while at the University of Oregon.
The organization is one of 19 in the United States
supported by grants from the National Science
Foundation to provide a background in science
for approximately 650 elementary teachers.
The next year Ebbighausen lectured for the
Foundation at the University of Arizona in
Tempe, Ariz. In 1963, NSF awarded him a
$11,000 grant, which Ebbighausen used to
establish the first observatory in Oregon for
astronomical research at Cache Mountain near
Bend. Four years later, he established another
observatory at Pine Mountain, and was awarded a
special citation from the Oregon Academy of
Science for “outstanding service in the field of
science’’ in 1970.
At the University, Ebbighausen was “ex
tremely popular’’ with his students, who fre
quently filled his classes to capacity, Crasemann
said. He was also highly admired by his peers in
the department, he added.
“Over the many years he was here, he con
tributed greatly to the teaching functions of the
department and to the development of
astronomy,” Crasemann said. “We will miss him
very much.”
A memorial service will be held Friday at 4
p.m. at the First Congregational Church at 1050
E. 23rd Avenue in Eugene. The family asks that in
lieu of flowers, donations be made in his name to
the “UO Foundation — Ebbighausen Pine Moun
tain Fund.”
I
It’s Mondale
Former Vice-Pres. Walter Mondale, who had already
chosen Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, D-N.Y., as his running
mate, swept to the Democratic presidential nomination
on the first ballot Wednesday. After Mondale garnered
more than enough delegate votes, his chief rival, Sen.
Gary Hart, D-Col., called for and received a voice vote to
make the nomination unanimous.
Elections observer
detained in Mexico
By Paul Ertelt
Of the Emerald
Though he says Guatemala
has the worst human rights
record in Central America, Bill
Lasswell believes there is a bet
ter chance of democracy
developing there than in El
Salvador.
Lasswell and his wife Judy
have traveled extensively in the
region, visiting and bringing
aide to refugee camps in
Southern Mexico. On June 26,
the Roseburg couple was de
tained by Mexican authorities
while observing the relocation
of Guatemala refugees away
from the Guatemalan-Mexican
border.
Lasswell, the district attorney
for Douglas County, witnessed
the recent presidential primary
races in El Salvador and was
part of a U.S. delegation that
observed the constituent
assembly election in Guatemala
July 1.
“The election in Guatemala
was a well run election,” he
says. “There were absolutely no
indications of fraud that I could
see.”
On the other hand, the
Salvadoran election was a
“bureaucratic mess,” he says.
“There was some obvious
manipulation,” he says. “We
saw a number of incidents
where voting materials were
delayed in particular areas."
But Lasswell sees both these
elections as attempts to give
legitimacy to the status quo,
and doubts that the elections
themselves will change much in
these countries.
The primary election in El
Salvador was followed by a run
off in which Jose Napoleon
Duarte defeated Roberto
D’Aubuisson.
In Guatemala delegates were
selected to draft a constitution
for that country. But a constitu
tion, is “only a piece of paper”
unless there is a commitment by
the government to uphold it,
Lasswell says.
But Lasswell sees some good
signs for democracy in
Guatemala, a “country of
ironies.”
For one thing, Guatemala did
experience ten years of
democracy before a CIA backed
coup overthrew the ad
ministraion of Pres. Jacobo
Arbenz in 1954. Also, while the
media in El Salvador is “in
sipid,” Guatemalan journalists
openly criticize the regime,
often at great personal risk,
Lasswell says.
Lasswell also predicts
pressure for change from the ur
ban middle class, as “death
squad” activities increase in the
cities.
“People are disappearing off
the streets everyday,” he says.
“It’s a very scary place.”