100 years ago

Among the wealth of antiquities found in the tomb of Tutankhamun no trace has yet been discovered of a single scrap of papyri that will throw and light on the obscure history of Egypt during that monarch’s reign. Indeed, not even the hieroglyphic inscriptions and pictorial legends on the walls of the mortuary chamber reveal any intelligible facts concerning the life and achievements of the King who ruled the Nile 1,350 before Christ.

Most of the 30 or more other royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings are adorned with innumerable sculptures, bas-reliefs, paintings and tablets illustrative of the periods in which the Pharaoh’s reigned. These inscriptions and paintings, are moreover, of a much higher merit than the few which have been found in Tutankhamun’s death chamber. They have been of invaluable service to the American and British. Archaeologists in piecing together, with the aid of papyrus documents found in the tombs, the fragmentary history of the Old and New Empire.

50 years ago

Gov. Tom McCall’s tax revision and school finance plan, passed Wednesday by the Oregon Senate, “would burden rather than help the rurals areas of Eastern Oregon,” said Sen. Mike Thorne, D-Pendleton.

Thorne voted against the plan and did not support his party’s position on the legislature’s biggest issue so far this session. The plan would have the state pay 95 per cent of school costs and eliminate use of local property taxes for school support.

In a telephone conversation from Salem Thursday Thorne cited several reasons for voting against the plan.

First, he said, this plan, “is going to cause an extra financial burden for rural areas.”

Wallowa County, for example, would experience across the board property tax increases on all business property, which in that county is mostly farmland.

25 years ago

Bobbie Lambert and Patricia Roderick have at least one thing in common: Both women came to the refuge Saturday wanting to see some action.

For them the return of the long-billed curlews is news, breaking news. The curlews return each year about March 15 to their breeding grounds near the Columbia River.

The curlews, after all, are the star attraction at the Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge. And they’re one of those specialized birds serious birders seek out.

Specifically, Lambert and Rodrick wanted to see the curlews do the funky.

“I really want to see them do some antics,” Roderick said. “It’s something I’ve wanted to see for years.” And she’s been on their trail for years.

The antics Rodrick is referring to are one of those bizarre courtship rituals some male birds dream up to enrapture mates.