Alright that you guys you've been very helpful so far
So far we have:
-replaced valve cover gaskets
-replaced carb-to-manifold gasket
-cleaned the carb
-replaced water neck gasket
-pulled all spark plugs
-added a tad bit of oil to cylinders
-rotated the engine manually (it turns

)
-checked dist. cap and rotor
still need to:
-new spark plugs
-run gas line from pump to new gas container
-new fluids/oil filter
-new battery
and from there I believe we should be set to go. Oh and fire extinguisher too.