David W Packard

David W. Packard, heir to a computer fortune, on Thursday announced an extraordinary donation of $500,000 to an Orange County schoolteacher who is challenging incumbent Delaine Eastin for the job of state superintendent of public instruction. Packard's gift, the largest single donation from an individual this year to a statewide candidate, instantly put challenger Gloria Matta Tuchman on equal financial footing with Eastin with less than two weeks left in what had been a quiet contest.

David W. Packard, heir to a computer fortune, on Thursday announced an extraordinary donation of $500,000 to an Orange County schoolteacher who is challenging incumbent Delaine Eastin for the job of state superintendent of public instruction. Packard's gift, the largest single donation from an individual this year to a statewide candidate, instantly put challenger Gloria Matta Tuchman on equal financial footing with Eastin with less than two weeks left in what had been a quiet contest.

Members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management will meet today and Thursday to receive a report on implementation of its recommendations for streamlining Pentagon procedures. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Tuesday that when the commission submitted its recommendations last year, President Reagan asked its chairman, industrialist and former Deputy Defense Secretary David W. Packard, to return later for an update.

Hewlett-Packard Co.'s effort to buy rival Compaq Computer Corp. will face a key test today as a foundation that controls more than 10% of HP's shares debates which way to vote those holdings. The David and Lucille Packard Foundation of Los Altos will hear from Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm that the nonprofit group hired to advise it on the $21-billion merger. If the foundation's 12-member board decides to oppose the deal, analysts and shareholders said the plan probably will fall apart.

The only thing missing Monday was the triumphant booming of the Wurlitzer organ as one silent movie cliffhanger was resolved. Film curators in Westwood announced that the movie buff who purchased most of the inventory of the nation's only silent movie theater last month has decided to place them in UCLA's Film and Television Archive. The donation by David W.

In a crucial, direct appeal to Wall Street, Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Carly Fiorina told analysts Wednesday that the proposed $21.7-billion purchase of Compaq Computer Corp. is vital for the company and asked them to ignore the daily attacks from dissident director Walter Hewlett.

Instead of promoting the three Rs, the two candidates for California's top public schools job, in the final week of a suddenly energized campaign, have chosen to dwell on the first: reading. Delaine Eastin, seeking a second four-year term as state superintendent of public instruction, is depicting herself on television as a champion of smaller classes to help children learn to read.

The odds of Hewlett-Packard Co. completing its $21-billion acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp. fell below 50% on Wednesday, shareholders and analysts said, after another HP co-founder's son said he opposed the deal. David W. Packard said late Tuesday that he was likely to vote his personal HP shares and the 25 million shares held by the Packard Humanities Institute against the transaction.

Theodore F. Brunner, a UC Irvine classics professor and self-admitted innocent when it came to computer technology 13 years ago, has completed what many classicists said couldn't be done. He has compiled a massive computerized data bank of everything in the ancient Greek language available in the world, from a word or two by Sophocles on a fragment of papyrus to full texts by the physician and writer Galen of 2 1/2 million words.

Jodi Manby faces a baffling task in her classroom at Kelso Elementary School. With virtually no experience, the rookie teacher must find a way to unlock the mystery of words for her fidgety second-graders. Some days, Manby feels lost. That is when she calls on her reading coach, a veteran colleague at the Inglewood school who critiques lessons and offers advice. "It's important for a first-year teacher to have a safety net," Manby says.

Theodore F. Brunner, a retired UC Irvine classics professor who helped establish the world's largest computerized database of the Greek language, revolutionizing the way scholars research ancient texts, has died. He was 72. Brunner died Wednesday of lung cancer at his home in Laguna Beach, his wife and research partner, Luci Berkowitz, said Saturday.