News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 92
Black Butte School's spring program theme this year was "Found Objects & Unnecessary Things." A capacity crowd filled the Camp Sherman Community Hall Thursday evening for an annual event that brings old friends and good food together in support of the school staff and the students. This year, Ethan Barrons, with the help of Gabriel Edwards, and his upper-grade students participated in an intentionally experimental MakerSpace program giving students the opportunity to design,... Full story
Where have all the flowers gone? It's that old Pete Seeger song that comes back to haunt us as we are finally beginning to realize the damage done to the food chain by pesticides. Brought to us by Dow AgroSciences to protect their genetically engineered crops is their chemical herbicide aminopyralid. Seven years ago, thousands of gardeners in the United Kingdom lost their tomatoes, beans and other sensitive crops to manure and hay laced with this potent, highly persistent... Full story
The popular Huckleberry Bush coffee kiosk is back in business. The owner, Tiffany Adrian, at the end of her first week said, "We had a great turnout and our grand opening was quite successful." This kiosk on wheels had been parked in the precarious traffic lane off Highway 20 in front of the Shell station. Cars occasionally rammed the structure, so a better location would have been desirous, but the kiosk was there when she bought the business in March 2014. A few months... Full story
It's not often that you walk onto a construction site and come upon a bunch of women in pink T-shirts up on ladders, wielding hammers and wrangling two-by-fours. But for three days last week that's how it was on East Cascade Avenue, where two townhomes were under construction as part of National Habitat for Humanity's Women Build Week. Fifty female volunteers from around Sisters Country strapped on their tool belts and hard hats, picked up their hammers and power tools, and... Full story
Many of those who want to be part of shaping the future and strengthening the economy of Sisters were at FivePine Conference Center last Friday as part of the Economic Vitality Summit - Shaping Sisters. The event was sponsored by the Ford Family Foundation and organized by Rural Development Initiatives (RDI) with assistance from Sisters Economic Development Manager Caprielle Foote-Lewis. RDI is a nonprofit formed by the Oregon legislature to help rural communities across the Pacific Northwest grapple with the economic downtur... Full story
My oldest grandson, who will turn 16 in a few weeks, drove me and his mother/my daughter to a DMV last week so he could take his driver's test (He passed!). I can't believe a grandchild of mine is turning 16! Pretty soon he'll be off to college, getting married, and I'll be cuddling my first great-grandchild. Great-grandchild! Wow! The seventh generation of people I've been with during parts of my life, having known three of my great-grandparents who lived into their 90s. Hopefully over my 70-plus years, I've gained some... Full story
When Black Butte School teacher Stephanie Blakelock was informed that her classroom had won $100 from the Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District for participating in the FireBusters program fire safety month last October, she was told she could use the funds in her classroom in any way she wished. She decided to teach her K-5 students the important life lesson of paying it forward by giving back to the firehouse. She taught the children about the domino effect of random acts of... Full story
One of the great things about having a local radio station like we have in Sisters with KZSO 94.9 FM, is that the hosts are often our friends and neighbors. With Shawn O'Hern and Thomas Means, co-hosts of "In Your House," you can get your home repair and improvement questions answered on the air and have professional local help available if you need it. Michael Richards, general manager of KZSO, talked to his friend Thomas Means about doing a show like "Car Talk," but focusing... Full story
You might have wondered what the story is behind that dental clinic on wheels you may see parked occasionally in front of the Kiwanis building on Main Avenue. The idea grew from the dream of Celia Grayson, who wanted to help break the cycle of poverty in Sisters. She recognized that bad teeth can make a bad impression on employers during the hiring process and, because gum disease can lead to serious illnesses when regular cleanings are delayed for financial reasons, it may... Full story
Several students from Ethan Barron's upper-grade class at Black Butte School have been recognized in statewide competitions for their outstanding achievements. Kincaid Smeltzer, a 14-year-old eighth-grader, won an award for the best project demonstrating the use of water-quality principles from the U.S. Geological Survey, Oregon Water Science Center-Stream Health. His project involved testing sediment samples downstream after the removal of a culvert in Indian Ford Creek. The... Full story
It has been the dream of Alison Perry for six years to create a place where veterans could come to heal, and find purpose and meaning in their lives. Perry, a licensed professional counselor and military family member, has a vision for a working ranch, evolved out of her six years' experience working directly with veterans working on the PTSD clinical team at the Portland VA Medical Center and Bend VA Clinic in Central Oregon. Perry has had several family members in the... Full story
I know I came into this room for a reason. Let's see. I got an email from my daughter telling me about ... what the heck did she tell me? OK, back to the computer, read the email again. Hmmm .... no, no clue why I felt I had to go into my bedroom to get a ... what? Nope, no idea. Also no idea why I'm standing here with the refrigerator door open staring at cold food. I'm not hungry. It's not time to fix a meal. Did I suddenly need to check expiration dates? Maybe I should call my daughter. Where's my phone? After looking... Full story
Fire season will likely start early this year due to the lack of snow over the winter. Property owners in the areas surrounding Sisters should already be clearing the pine needles and trimming back the combustible vegetation surrounding their homes, barns, stables and other structures to create a defensible area. Meanwhile there are others getting ready to protect us from the flames if they come our way. Young people interested in training to become the firefighters who might... Full story
We all hope to have bright kids, and starting them off right is a step in that direction. Now Sisters Country parents can take preschoolers to Bright Kids at 202 E. Fir St. for an early interactive and creative learning environment that will prepare them for kindergarten and beyond. Owner/teacher Alicia Chatila has nine years of teaching experience and is certified in phonics training. Previously she managed a learning center with 90 children, then opened her own center with... Full story
After months of work, a citizens' committee is ready to roll out its analysis of potential community projects. As the result of a town hall meeting concerning the announcement from the City of Sisters about a proposed amphitheater project in February 2014, the Community Assets Committee (CAC) was charged with analyzing four potential projects that received the most votes from those in attendance at that meeting. The committee was asked to describe how each idea might look in Sisters, get feedback about their results from the... Full story
Sisters Habitat for Humanity volunteers will be twice as busy this spring on the 900 block of Cascade Avenue, constructing two new homes side by side. On Sunday, March 15, family and volunteers broke ground for the new home of Josh and Kristina Maxwell. The Maxwells came to Sisters two years ago from Montana looking for a fresh start. They've had the love and support of Kristina's parents, who live here, to apply for a Habitat home, and all have been hard at work accumulating... Full story
We'd all like to think we're going to live forever, but the truth is, 100 percent of us are going to die. Whether from old age or disease, most of us would prefer to die while doing something we love to do or at home in our own bed in our sleep. The reality is that 70 percent of us die in hospitals, nursing homes or long-term care facilities. Jennifer Blechman, MD, of Partners In Care - Hospice, Home Health & Palliative Care, provided some key statistics to The Nugget: Over 90 percent of people think it is important to talk a... Full story
It started one Friday afternoon while sitting at my computer... just a little tickle in the back of my throat. By 10 o'clock, I could no longer form a coherent thought. My head felt like it expanded to the size of a watermelon. My throat was raw. Couldn't stop coughing. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't eat. Just wanted to sleep. All weekend. By Monday I felt better. I actually got some writing done in the morning. I picked up my granddaughter after school, but this time she read to me instead of me reading to her because by the... Full story
Aerial dance incorporates the use of hanging equipment or aerial apparatus. It is similar to high-flying acrobatic feats seen in the circus combined with theatrical expression popularized by performance artists in Cirque du Soleil. Aerial silk artists climb, twist, spin, drop and contort themselves on aerial ribbons that hang from the ceiling. Kendall Knowles, owner of Central Oregon Aerial Arts in Bend, is now offering classes at Sisters Athletic Club. This artistic dance... Full story
Mustang horses Duncan and Otter helped clean up the highways and byways between Sisters and Redmond. A volunteer crew from Mustangs to the Rescue (MTTR) filled yellow trash-bags along Highway 126 last weekend, which Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) trucks will pick up during the week. Kate Beardsley, executive director of the local non-profit located on Cloverdale Road, said this is one of the many service projects her volunteers participate in as their way of... Full story
When you step into Cha for the Finest art gallery on Hood Avenue, it's like stepping into the past ... 20,000 years into the past. You immediately become immersed in a wonderland of what life might have been like back in pre-historic times as told by modern-day artisans and crafters. Cha is an artisan and author. She is inviting the public to the gallery on Saturday, February 21, at 10 a.m. to listen to a reading from her novel "Right of Way." "Right of Way" is the first in a... Full story
Would you like to do something meaningful for your community and help hardworking families achieve their dream of homeownership? Are you a newcomer to Sisters and want to meet local folks with similar interests? Did you retire recently and feel like you want to be doing something with your new-found free time? These are some of the reasons volunteers at Sisters Habitat for Humanity give for joining the team. Between the Thrift Store, the ReStore and the home-building... Full story
Yay! My book is finally in print. Do you have any idea what it takes to get a book into a finished product these days when you do everything yourself? Publishers don't want anything to do with you unless you have an agent, and agents won't return your calls unless you're already a best-selling author, so self-publishing is the alternative for wannabe authors, unless you can pay someone to do it for you. Even if you could find a willing publisher, they still expect the author to do the marketing and buy their own books so why... Full story
I remember Christmases when I was a kid - when my sister and I got so many presents we'd fall asleep before we could open them all. We always had huge Christmas trees in our two-story living room, fully decorated with ornaments and tinsel galore, and a big twinkling star on top. I remember some Christmases with my own kids when we had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree and not even a lump of coal to pass between us. Yes, really, about as bad as that in the late '70s, early '80s. It was those times that taught me the meaning of... Full story
A little frost and freezing rain couldn't keep Sisters Habitat for Humanity volunteers from coming together last week to celebrate the completion of two new homes on Greenridge Avenue. Chrys Purkey and her son Devin, a kindergartner at Sisters Elementary School, are now living next door to Jeannie Sandecki. Both women put in well over their required 500 hours of sweat equity with saws and hammers, and pots and pans -turning out meals and treats for the many volunteers who... Full story
