News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sorted by date Results 185 - 209 of 3917
You'd think that Sisters' winters would be the most amenable time for going on a reading tear, but for me, summer seems to be the season when I really get on a roll - especially with fiction. Part of that is technologically enabled. With audiobooks downloaded to the phone, I can listen to a novel while I'm throwing down a couple of hours of work in the yard, read-tripping with Marilyn, or chucking newspapers on porches through downtown Sisters on a Tuesday night. Part of it... Full story
The Sisters Rodeo honored some key players in America's frontier military history last weekend. They welcomed the Buffalo Soldiers of Seattle, a reenactment group that pays tribute to the soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry - Black regiments that conducted some of the most grueling campaigns in the American West after the American Civil War. The Buffalo Soldiers were given their name by the Plains Tribes, who respected their endurance and... Full story
The winner of the title All-Around Cowboy at Sisters Rodeo is the contestant who wins the most money over the weekend, usually having success in multiple events. Traditionally, that cowboy wins a saddle, which has been sponsored for decades by US Bank. But when you're a successful rodeo cowboy, chances are you have more saddles than you have horses. "This year we decided so many guys have multiple saddles, we wanted to do something special, rather than just another saddle,"... Full story
A friend told me the other day that he gets downright sentimental about a small-town parade. Heart-bursting, tear-welling sentimental. That’s a wonderful thing. It signals a connection to something truly valuable — a genuine, homegrown sense of community that doesn’t exist everywhere. Sisters has long punched well above its weight when it comes to creating events that are 100-proof, world-class — and yet celebrate a hometown vibe. Nothing exemplifies that more than the Sis... Full story
A Sisters High School freshman was arrested on Wednesday, May 31, in connection with two fires in girls bathrooms that led to the evacuation of the school. Authorities withheld the name of the juvenile female. According to the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, a student at Sisters High School alerted staff to a fire in the girls restroom at 10:20 a.m. School staff responded to the girls restroom, and used a fire extinguisher to quench the blaze, which was located in the t... Full story
"We're ready to roll," said Hank Moss, a member of the Sisters Rodeo Association Board of Directors. It takes a huge volunteer effort - of some 225 people - to get Sisters Rodeo ready to roll, from painting to landscaping to manning food concessions and helping patrons find their seats to take in "The Biggest Little Show in the World." Moss expects some first-class rodeo action over the weekend, Friday-Sunday, June 9-11. "A lot of world champions will be there," Moss told The... Full story
The Sisters Stampede mountain bike race has become the unofficial launch of summer in Sisters. And Sisters Country served up a perfect early summer day for the hundreds of racers who took to the Peterson Ridge Trail System in an event that has put Sisters on the cycling map. The Sisters Stampede is so well-known and highly regarded that it is sold out in advance - as in on Valentine's Day in February. As is the tradition, the lead out for the multiple groups of riders that... Full story
The morning of Monday, May 29 carried the warm promise of summer and the pleasures of a three-day weekend in sunny Sisters Country - but many Sisters Country residents gathered in Village Green for a purpose more somber and more weighty than a holiday barbecue. As they have done for many years, Sisters veterans organizations - VFW Post 8138, Sisters Band of Brothers, and American Legion Post 86 - hosted a moving tribute to the fallen of America's conflicts, from the American... Full story
Green Ridge looms over Camp Sherman, its treed slopes and burn scars home to populations of wildlife and a destination for hikers and hunters. It's also the site of a Forest Service project - six years in the making - that is drawing intense scrutiny as a final decision approaches. According to the Forest Service, a draft decision on the Green Ridge Landscape Restoration Project envisions a project that "includes up to 19,437 acres of thinning, mowing, and prescribed fire... Full story
The Tollgate subdivision west of Sisters is nestled amid the towering ponderosa pines of the Deschutes National Forest. That's part of the charm of the 440-home development - but it also makes it vulnerable to wildfire. Residents of Tollgate are taking the threat of wildfire head-on, using Firewise principles to protect themselves and their neighbors by hardening homes and reducing fuels around homes. The Tollgate Firewise Committee, headed by Jane Killefer, held their second... Full story
Fire consumed the RV homes of a couple living in the forest just north of Highway 20 less than a quarter-mile from Sisters late Saturday night (see story, page 1). No one was injured in the fire, but the occupants lost everything they had to the flames. Embers from the blaze that consumed the RVs also sparked a small spot fire that caught in a dry, punky log about 100 yards from the main fire. A Forest Service firefighting crew was still patrolling the area on foot on Monday... Full story
A fire of undetermined origin consumed two trailers/RVs in the forest just west of Sisters late Saturday night, May 13. "It involved two RVs," Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District Shift Commander Cody Meredith told The Nugget. "One of them was completely destroyed. When we pulled up, there was pretty good flame-length; a tree was torching between the two RVS." The fire, which was called in just before 11 p.m., occurred north of the Best Western Ponderosa Lodge off the 2068-120... Full story
Sisters has a lot to be proud of in the agencies that work to protect our community. The Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District, supported by Cloverdale and Black Butte Ranch fire districts, responded quickly and effectively to a raging inferno that consumed two RVs in the woods just outside Sisters Saturday night. Jason Barber, a fire manager with the U.S. Forest Service, told me that “the fire department crushed that — it was great.” And it was. Local firefighters attac... Full story
The work each of us does to prepare for emergencies can make a big difference in how well we weather a crisis — both personally and as a community. A cadre of experts in the field of emergency preparedness and response will gather on Thursday, May 11, at the Sisters Fire District’s Community Hall to talk about the range of potential emergencies that can affect Sisters Country, and practical steps we can all take to be prepared to navigate them. The forum, titled “Em... Full story
Stellar pitching and strong defense have carried the Sisters High School Outlaws baseball team to a 7-2 record in league play. Coach Matt Hilgers said the team has prevailed in “some close, intense baseball” this spring. They took two out of three against both Pleasant Hill and La Pine, two of the most challenging teams in the league. Brody Duey turned in a no-hitter against the Creswell Bulldogs. “We followed it up with Brody Davis pitching a one-hitter,” Hilgers said. ... Full story
Nobody enjoys paying taxes. However, if we have to pay taxes — and we know that that is one of two inevitabilities in life — local taxes paid directly to institutions that have immediate local value are the best kind to pay. With both measures 9-160 and 9-161 on the May 16 ballot, Sisters has the opportunity to renew local option levies that make a big difference in the quality of life for many of our citizens. You can see the impact of each of your tax dollars on the gro... Full story
A few months before we moved to Sisters in 1993, my wife Marilyn and I — along with the rest of the nation — were transfixed by the news that came out of Waco, Texas. On February 28, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) raided the compound of a religious cult known as the Branch Davidians, seeking to serve a search warrant for a massive cache of illegal firearms, and an arrest warrant for Vernon Wayne Howell, who called himself David Koresh. The Branch Dav... Full story
My 95-year-old dad never saw a construction project he didn’t like. A child of the Great Depression and World War II, development to him has always signaled growing prosperity, more people accessing an American Dream he fervently believed in. And why wouldn’t he? The 10th of 11 children of a Swedish father and an Irish mother who came West to Washington and then California in the 1920s seeking opportunity, he found his trade as a printer when he was 12 years old, and rode tha... Full story
City planners did the right thing in kicking the application for an expansion of the Space Age Fuel service station up to Type III status, which means it will be heard by the Sisters Planning Commission. The planning commissioners should take full advantage of the opportunity to examine whether the application represents the actual intent of code changes enacted in 2019, and to explore what the City of Sisters’ options are in addressing the concerns of a substantial part of it... Full story
Each year in March, a team of firefighter-athletes from Sisters Country joins a couple thousand of their peers for a grueling climb up the stairway of a skyscraper in Seattle, Washington. It’s a great way to build and test fitness for a physically demanding job — but more than that, it is an opportunity to serve a cause that is meaningful — sometimes very personally — to those first responders. A cadre of Sisters and Cloverdale firefighters loaded with m... Full story
Heavy equipment knocked down the building that formerly housed Hop in the Spa last week. The new owner of the property, Roger Johnson of Sisters, told The Nugget he is working on plans to redevelop the property. The building on the Cascade Avenue site was completely removed. It had stood empty for many months in the wake of the closure of Hop in the Spa after its owner, Mike Boyle, of Sisters, was indicted on September 7, 2021, on multiple counts of practicing massage without... Full story
Sisters is the new headquarters for Jive Radio, and a lot of folks think that’s cause for celebration. KJIVE (96.5 FM/www.jiveradio.org), a non-commercial independent radio station owned by OpenSky Radio Corp., has its first-ever formal studio located in The Belfry. And that venue will host a celebration of the station and independent music on Tuesday, March 14. Cruz Contreras, singer-songwriter and band leader of the Black Lillies — who have played here multiple t... Full story
Last week, I flew to San Antonio, Texas, for a conference with my colleagues with Mullen Newspapers. Louie Mullen, the majority owner of The Nugget (with myself as minority owner), has community weekly newspapers across the country, and a dozen of the publishers of those papers gather regularly to share ideas and to work through the struggles that each of us face in a challenging media landscape. A snafu at the car rental counter put me on the taxi line at the San Antonio... Full story
Sisters resident Jim Cunningham knows a thing or two about air defense. As a brigadier general in command of the Oregon National Guard from 2000 to 2006, he was responsible for patrolling the skies above the state, on the lookout for intrusion by any hostile force. He held that command in the tense days in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. As the U.S. shot down four “objects” — at least two of them clearly balloons — in the spa... Full story
Mike Whitlatch has learned his business from the ground up — literally. “I started out cleaning ducts and putting in duct work under houses,” he recalled. With experience in every level of the business — from major commercial installations like Deschutes Brewery and St. Charles Hospital to residential applications — he has now launched his own company. Sisters Heating & Air took it’s first call last September, and they’ve been roiling ever since. Sisters... Full story
