I knew some of this, but not all of it, courtesy of an emailer:

You bet The Daily Egyptian is a great name for a newspaper. Know why it’s the name? Far southern Illinois has been known since the early nineteenth century as “little Egypt” (sometimes “lower Egypt”), and of course at the southern apex of the state is Cairo (locally pronounced KAY-ro), where the Ohio and Misssissippi rivers meet. The SIU teams are the Salukis (the long-haired greyhound of Egypt). In 1858 Stephen Douglas said to voters in northern Illinois that he expected that when he and Lincoln met “down in lower Egypt,” Abe would sing a different tune on slavery. They met in Jonesboro for the third of their seven debates, and Lincoln proved Douglas wrong.