Jackson County's museums and historical societies are putting all their eggs in one basket to help celebrate Oregon's 150th birthday. The eggs in this case are donated items related to Oregon history, which will be placed in a huge basket to be raffled off for a month beginning Feb. 14, the anniversary of Oregon's birth in 1859. The items are worth about $200.
The way it works, explains Charleen Brown of the Rogue Valley Genealogical Society in Phoenix, is that free raffle tickets will be given out at the more than a dozen museum or society offices state birthday celebrants visit during that period. The genealogical society is one of the participants.
"We want to get the word out that we are surviving," she said of societies whose county funding was cut two years ago. "This is also a way to get people to take an interest in our history and realize the importance of keeping it alive."
You can read more about the raffles in an article by Paul Fattig in the (Southern Oregon) Mail Tribune at: http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090202/NEWS/902020311.
