News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sorted by date Results 301 - 325 of 502
In interviews with The Nugget strong differences between candidates Patti Adair and Morgan Schmidt become evident. Adair, the incumbent running for Deschutes County Commissioner Position 3, speaks animatedly with a focus on tasks — those she’s accomplished, and those she wants to do. Schmidt, her opponent, is making her first run for public office. She speaks in measured tones with a focus on policy. It’s Adair’s and current commissioner Terry DeBone’s decisions while s... Full story
In the race for Deschutes County Commissioner Position 1, three-term incumbent Tony DeBone is opposed by Oliver Tatom, making his first run. Tatom’s previous elected experience is as a board member of Central Oregon Community College (COCC) and Deschutes Rural Fire Protection District. He is a paramedic and registered nurse who, until two weeks ago, was employed by St. Charles Health System. He resigned to pursue his quest for the Board of Commissioners. He and his wife, A... Full story
What a difference a year makes. Last year’s Harvest Faire, sponsored by the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce, was a cool, wet affair that dampened spirits and sales. Not so 2022, when some 200 vendors — nearly a fourth making their first Sisters appearance — took over three blocks of Main Avenue on Saturday and Sunday. In addition to postcard-perfect weather both days, attendees were treated to a festival setting with numerous food options, music at the Fir S... Full story
Buddy Blair, 66, works at Sno-Cap. He does food prep and maintenance. His wife, Adrian, 38, is the kitchen manager at the iconic eatery on Cascade Avenue. That’s where they met three years ago. They raise two children, 17 and 4, to whom Buddy is the step-father. They all live together in the forest. Not by choice, by necessity. It’s not important for the rest of us to know the circumstances that cause them to be forest dwellers. The bottom line is that they cannot afford to... Full story
The Cyrus family is no stranger to opposition to development plans. The family, headed by patriarch Keith, bought 1,100 acres of forest land in the 1980s adjacent to their Cloverdale hay and potato farm and turned it into Aspen Lakes Golf Course, with a cluster of around 115 homesites, since built upon as Aspen Lakes Estates, where homes routinely sell in the range of $1.5 to $2.5 million. The Cyruses have never been opaque about their intentions to fill out the acres as a... Full story
Plans to market the Aspen Lakes development east of Sisters as an NFT resort accelerated in the past week — and so did opposition to the idea. The property remains in the hands of the Cyrus family of Sisters; at the same time, a South Dakota-listed corporation ramped up its promotion of an entirely reformatted Aspen Lakes called Rhue Resorts. Cindy Wyant is listed as CEO. Wyant and her husband, Don, both in their 60s, and/or their adult children, have nearly two dozen... Full story
“Ridiculously excited.” That was how Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser described his feelings to the Sisters Folk Festival (SFF) audience Saturday at Sisters Art Works. He and partner, cellist Natalie Haas, last performed at the Festival in 2016. He was describing the joy he felt at being back in Sisters before a wildly enthusiastic crowd. That excitement was shared by audiences all weekend, as 31 acts from across the land and oceans filled eight venues starting Friday nig... Full story
The initial test of community responsiveness to a growing problem in Sisters’ forest resulted in the removal of the remains of an RV that burned to the ground in 2020. The carcass was located a few hundred yards from North Pine Street and close to popular hiking trails. The area, adjacent to the ClearPine subdivision of 97 houses, has long been home to dozens of seasonal dwellers who camp in a myriad of temporary dwellings, from single-person tents to cars to RVs. This p... Full story
Golf in Oregon is extra special — so say the game’s enthusiasts from across the country. “It’s the landscape,” said Tye Butler from Dallas, Texas, who with his family was vacationing — and golfing — at Black Butte Ranch. “If you’ve ever played golf in Ireland or Scotland, you’ll know what I mean. “In Oregon, it’s even better,” he said. “I mean, you can play on the Pacific Ocean at one of the world’s most amazing courses (Bandon Dunes) in the morning and come... Full story
Bromus tectorum, known as downy brome, drooping brome, or cheatgrass, is an annual invasive grass that is native to Europe and eastern Asia, not North America. It was brought to Oregon by European settlers in the mid to late 1800s. It overtook native vegetation when pioneers introduced large numbers of livestock like cattle and sheep into sagebrush country. Oregon’s palatable native grasses weren’t adaptable to such high levels of overgrazing by domestic livestock, which creat... Full story
By rough count there are between 300 and 400 exterior mounted security cameras in Sisters, frequently called CCTV (closed circuit television), installed by businesses. That doesn’t include an even greater number of residential cameras. The Laird Superfood campus alone has 30. The various self-storage businesses are prime users of the technology with some two dozen at Sisters Self Storage’s two locations. Of course, the banks are well equipped with the units. Their ATMs have bu... Full story
Sisters Country folk in numbers headed northeast Friday and Saturday, making the 50-minute journey to the air festival in Madras, more commonly known as Air Show of the Cascades. Among them were three generations of Johnsons — Jace, age 6, Lia, age 8, dad, Gunnar, and Grandpa Andy. “We are having an amazing time,” Gunnar said as he hoisted the kiddos into an Army helicopter. Andy was delighted to have a “boys’ day out,” adding: “This is something all of us like, nobod... Full story
Pictures of Prineville circa 1880 show a sea of grass and very few trees. The landscape drew ranchers by the hundreds to settle in Central Oregon. Today, like much of the eastern and Central Oregon sagebrush sea, the steppe is covered with juniper, and — more worrisome — cheatgrass. The western juniper is native to Oregon, with frequent references to it being a weed. In the 1870s, settlers raised large numbers of cattle that feasted on the native grasses growing... Full story
Black Butte Ranch Rural Fire Protection District is a combination career and volunteer department that serves approximately three square miles, an area almost double Sisters’ 1.88 square miles. The department covers the resort community, which has a year-round population of about 300 residents and a destination population that can be as high as 5,000 during the peak summer months. In addition, District personnel provide advanced life support emergency medical services, v... Full story
The wait is over. After nearly a year, Toriizaka Art has opened at 222 W. Hood Ave. in the space formerly long occupied by Ken Scott’s Imagination Gallery. The new gallery was rebuilt from the skeleton up — new floors, new walls, new windows, new roof, new plumbing, all-new electric, brand-new kitchenette, and a paint job inside and out. The renovated space is nothing of its former self. The curator, Karen Thomas, has taken art in Sisters to a new height. She and her h... Full story
It was in April that the City brought Jacob Smith on board as its first ever code enforcement officer. He had been in a similar position in Redmond for 13 years. Our July 5 story on overgrown weeds and grass pointed out a sizeable part of Smith’s job. We wanted to get more in-depth with him, to get the bigger picture on his role and how he’s adapting to it. True, “vegetation” issues as he calls them are at the top of his work pile, as we are now into the peak of the summer... Full story
Laird Superfood, the U.S.-based protein bars and plant-based creamers maker headquartered on Lundgren Mill Drive in Sisters has received a takeover offer from investment bank EF Hutton. Laird, listed on the NYSE-American as LSF, which last week announced a first-half net loss of $19 million, said the approach has been made via a special purpose vehicle of EF Hutton for $3 a share, in what it called an “unsolicited offer.” “The Laird Superfood board of directors will caref... Full story
In a surprise move, the Oregon Department of Forestry has withdrawn its wildfire risk map after receiving criticism from the public. People who own property in “high” or “extreme” wildfire risk areas may face new requirements under Senate Bill 762. The map was part of the implementation of SB762. Last month the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) released the new map, created with Oregon State University, that outlined wildfire risk statewide, in the first step toward requiri... Full story
Saturday saw 61 equestrians from four states gather at Sisters Cow Camp for a day of endurance riding competition. There was a 50-mile course run by 18, a 30-mile limited-distance route that had 36 riders, and seven riders who came out for a 12-mile introductory course. Known as the Historic Santiam Cascade Endurance Ride, the Sisters-based group has been around for 58 years, with over 300 members on social media. The ride was AERC sanctioned (American Endurance Ride Conferenc... Full story
Last week saw the arrival in Sisters of a task force. Recent lightning and the elevated threat of wildfire in Central and Southern Oregon have prompted the Oregon Office of State Fire Marshal (OSFM) to pre-position two structural task forces of firefighters and equipment in Deschutes and Klamath counties. A task force from Marion County mobilized Thursday morning, August 11. These firefighters pre-positioned in Deschutes County. The task force is made up of 13 firefighters, fo... Full story
- Water curtailed. As of August 6, users of Three Sisters Irrigation District were receiving 70 percent of their allotment, a normal flow for the first week of August. - The Woodlands taking reservations. The first of five phases to be ready in the spring of 2023 includes 21 cottages ranging from 859 to 1,250 sq. ft., 11 townhomes and five mixed-use parcels. The 35-acre development is bounded by W. Barclay Drive, N. Pine Street, and Highway 20/126 and when finished will have... Full story
Deputy Sheriff Brian Morris, who works out of the Deschutes County Sisters substation, was my host for several hours last Friday as I was approved for a ride-along. Morris lives in Sisters and has children in our schools, so he has a personal investment in keeping the streets safe — which, let’s face it, is a fairly easy task. Not exactly a hotbed of crime here in the village. That does not mean there is not much to do. Tragedies do happen of course. It’s not a per... Full story
Outside, it was all fun and games. Inside the animal barns, it was all business. As record numbers of Deschutes County Fairgoers delighted in the myriad thrilling rides, some with lines requiring a 20-minute wait, members of the Cloverdale Livestock Club were at work garnering scores of ribbons. Young Conner Cyrus, for example, scored 17 ribbons over the weekend. 4-H is not complicated to its members, but is complex especially to outsiders. In sheep alone there are... Full story
During an international conference of firefighting managers in Portland in 2014, Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District chief Roger Johnson got to talking with his counterpart from Hampshire, England. The professional friendship led to a one-of-a-kind annual exchange of personnel for a fortnight (14 days) every summer. Even during the COVID-19 years, the two departments remained in close consultation and comradery via Zoom. The yearly visits in person have resumed, and Sisters is... Full story
Two of the five new Little Free Libraries were dedicated last week, including the one shown here with Mayor Michael Preedin, who was present for the ribbon cutting ceremony. Erika Turnquist, age 2, and her brother Damien, 9, were the first borrowers at the one installed at the entry to Clemens Park at North Larch Street and East Black Butte Avenue. The Little Free Library at McKenzie Meadows Village park was also dedicated. Next week will see the installation at ClearPine sub-... Full story
