Museum organizes, cares for ancient fossils By John Higgins t'r»»al-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." Opticolor Film 135/24-100ASA One Day 4* Reprints 290m Tues 1-Hr Photo 2nd Set 4* Prints 990 tm - m TtfeSs Overnight 2nd Set 3' Prints Lg9i Thurs Opticolor Film 135/24-100ASA -J 99 Spring Break Low Air Fares! HOLIDAYS ABROAD | 2850 Willamette • 484-7373] I BIKES! SPRING! | | Major Tun«-Ups $10 OFF | BLUE HERON BICYCLES I 877 E l 3th *343-2488 f Next to U ol O Bookstore j srw (item must be over $> Notgax)«rth other oflers Otter e«t*es 3/31-33) “TCBV” The CountryS Best )bgurt. • 3131 W.llth, Market Place West | • 1888 Franklin Btvd. (Franklm 1 Villard) .