Museum organizes, cares for ancient fossils
By John Higgins
t'r»»al<l Cwwttxjtof
Stacked boxes of fossils rung
in^ from walrus tusks to rolled
up rattlesnake skins lino the walls
of the small basement room in
Pacific Mali that houses the Con
don Museum.
Each specimen is marked with
pink paint and a University num
inir. which is catalogued with the
museum's other specimens on a
i ompiller file.
"The trick is to keep it in
order." said Condon Museum
l)ire< tor William Orr "My wife
is a librarian, so stie s putting it
in kind of a librarian mode.”
Orr. a University professor of
geology, has inherited the t horge
of imposing order on the chaos
of bones and ris ks in the muse
um.
The collection includes an I h
million-year-old crab found at
(lapo Kiwanda. a 2f>-millinn-voar
old sand dollar found -ar Si I -
verton and a 44-milllon-year-old
sen turtle found near Coos Hay.
Orr curates the collet lion in
addition to teaching classes, and
is i urrently finding a way to han
dle the 10,000 to 15.000 new
specimens the Oregon Museum
of Science and Industry has sent
from Portland for storage.
The boxes are part of the
biggest addition to the Condon
Museum since the museum’s first
curator donated his findings in
1907.
That first curator was Rev.
Thomas Condon, who came to
’■‘•y
Dr. William On exhibits a drawer full of fossil lied mouse teeth from the fossil repository In the University's
Condon Museum. The fossils are used for leaching purposes and are available for loans to other museums.
teach at the University in 1876
mid brought with him his private
collection of fossils.
After exploring the fossil Iwds
of eastern Oregon and the John
Day Valley, Condon soon became
n well-known lecturer on the sub
ject and eventually was named
Oregon's first state geologist
Today the museum's collection
of 35,000 specimens of fossil ver
tebrates ranks 12th in the nation
for number of specimens.
To help organize the fossils.
()rr created a special shelving sys
tem along with the computer cat
alog
By spinning u large wheel, a
geologist who wants to fetch an
ice-age horse tooth can create an
aisle in front of the shelf he
needs.
Orr is having more shelves
built to accommodate the new
specimens Irom OMNI.
However, not all of the speci
mens in the collection are ancient
fossils.
Muny people bring in modem
bones, which the researchers use
for teaching rather than risk
breaking the fossilized bones.
One of the most unusual dona
tions to the collection was from
a circus.
A box of yellower! ribs rests on
top of a storage cabinet along
with a massive skull on a metal
(.art These bones belonged to
Tusko. a circus elephant.
The museum acquired Tusko
after he escaped near Portland in
the 1920s and died of exposure
His complete skeleton is so big
it's easier to keep in separate box
es. which are shoved wherever
there is room.
Students who want to study
the basic features of mammoths
and mastodons study Tusko.
About HO percent of the col
lection's most important speci
mens have come from people
who discover something out of
the ordinary. For example. Orr is
currently working with a boy in
Eugene who thinks he's found
the wrist of a giant ground sloth.
Orr said he wishes he had more
time to collect fossils himself, but
teaching keeps him close to the
University
Oregon is one of the world's
most complete archives of earth
history, making it a treasure trove
for anyone with a desire to col
lect. lip to two-thirds of the state
is a patchwork of rocky chunks
rafted in from the Pacific Rim.
For example, the Blue Moun
tains. Klamath Mountains and
coast range hoar fossils that didn't
originate locally.
"We have a repository, a library'
almost, of rocks from the Central
Pacific." Orr said. “It's a mar
velously complex problem. You
can put together a nice story
alrout what you think happened."
University students find Little Buddies during Kid Time
By Marion Suitor
tmoraid Contributor __
A mob of 10 elementary school children atlock the col
lege student struggling to escape (ho chaotic hoard
In Ins hand is the spinner (or the Twister game, and all
of the children are straining to take possession of the col
orful piece of cardlxuml
In another corner of the room, children mill about, ask
ing in tormented voices, "When is the pizza going to get
here'" and "Which movie are we going to watch7"
University dorm residents stand nearby, watching the
Imtihiih with smiles on their faces and occasionally yelling
something to one of the frantic kids.
Those an1 regular occurrences at meetings of Kid Time,
a Big Buddy/l.ittle Buddy program begun this term by
University Housing program assistants Kob l-amplmll and
Shari Wnki
And the mayhem doesn't seem to bother the dorm res
idents who volunteered to participate in the program.
"Wo don’t usually get to do things with kids this age,'
said junior Kristie Teshima. "Besides, it's a good release
from studying "
This term, 17 students from Edison and Harris Ele
mentary Schools spent four weekday afternoons with their
respective Big Buddies, and Wednesday's meeting, com
plete with movie, pizza and popcorn, marked the end
of tho winter term program
Grade school students and dorm residents were paired
up arbitrarily, hut the participants, both big and little,
were surprised by how well they got along with their
counterparts
"The funny thing is. even though they didn't know any
thing about each other, they matched up really well,"
Campbell said "They were amazed they had so much in
common."
Campbell and Waki initiated the Kid Time program
after they proposed a similar plan at a leadership con
ference last year. The plan was just hypothetical at that
(Hunt, but the decided to put it into action.
"We didn't think it would ever actually happen." said
Gtmpbell. "but then people seemed interested, and we
thought. 'Why not?"'
Every Wednesday afternoon for the past four weeks,
the Little Buddies were bussed over from their elemen
tary schools and brought on campus, where they met with
their Big Buddies to moke crafts, eat snacks and play
games.
The co-directors managed to find pastimes that whole
group enjoyed, such as tie-dyeing and constructing pic
ture frames to showcase candid photographs from previ
ous Kid Time get-togethers.
The picture frames were cool," said third-grader Brooke
Parrott. "We got to make our own personal ones with any
color we wonted."
Waki said many of the students involved in this term's •
program are looking forward to participating again next
term, and some have even committed to telephoning their
Little Buddies weekly or spending time with the chil- .
dren's families.
"Some children got really close to their Big Buddies,”
Waki said. "That's good though, because that is what we
encouraged in the program."
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