News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
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Aurolyn Stwyer is renowned for her beadwork and for her traditional dancing. The Warm Springs artist will bring her deep knowledge of the cultural heritage of her Celilo people to Sisters on February 21, in a Fireside Story Evening at FivePine Lodge and Conference Center on February 21. Stwyer learned beading in the traditional way — from her grandmother. “I would sit and watch, and finally my grandmother pulled out some beads and some needle and thread, she told me h... Full story
Steven Peterzen has had a busy week. Peterzen, who has lived in Sisters for more than decade, is the founder and owner of ISTAR Stratospheric Ballooning. ISTAR launches and recovers payloads for scientific and technological experiments for agencies, companies, and academic institutions. He has worked with Sisters’ science classes to launch balloons from Sisters Eagle Airport. With deep expertise and more than three decades of experience in the field, he’s been fielding pho... Full story
Life took a hard turn for Steve Rollins on December 2, 2022. The longtime Sisters mechanic took a bad fall at his home shop that left him with spinal cord injuries and facing a long road to recovery. “He slipped on ice,” his son Jeremy Rollins told The Nugget. “He said the last thing he remembered was the ground coming up at him.” What happened, though, was worse than hitting the ground. Rollins fell face-first into the hydraulic arm of a floor hoist used for lifting car eng... Full story
If you get in about 20 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity a day, and do some lifting a couple of times a week — congratulations. You’re meeting the minimum recommended standards for good health. And you’re ahead of nearly 75 percent of Americans. In a study that may dismay fitness professionals, but certainly doesn’t surprise them, the Department of Health and Human Services reported last week that only 28 percent of Americans are meeting basic physical activ... Full story
It’s often overlooked or ignored, but new young drivers operate with restrictions on their license. Those restrictions are designed to minimize distractions while new drivers learn how to drive on their own. Under Oregon law, new drivers are provided with a provisional license, which restricts the number of passengers allowed in a vehicle — no passengers under 20 (unless family members) or driving between 12 a.m. and 5 a.m. for the first six months; no more than three p... Full story
Brian David Owens stopped by The Nugget last Thursday to clear a couple of things up. Owens lives in the forest west of Ponderosa Lodge, and he was mentioned — by first name only — in Bill Bartlett’s story “Forest thinning reveals forest dwellings,” (The Nugget, January 18, page 1). He and his dog Dude came into the office, and we rang up Bill, and we all had a good conversation. Owens prefers that his full name be used. He wanted it understood that his frien... Full story
Knowing the community you are working in on an intimate basis makes a big difference in law enforcement. That was the message that came across loud and clear in a two-night Citizens Academy open house hosted by the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office (DCSO) at the Sisters Fire District Community Hall on Wednesday and Thursday, January 18-19. Between 30 and 40 citizens turned out each night to get to know local deputies and to get a glimpse at how the DCSO operates. Everyone a... Full story
Sisters Country has its share of pests, from infiltrations of ants to tunneling voles in the grass to rodents getting into the garage or the house. Birds and bats can pose a problem. Pests can be a nuisance — and sometimes they can cause significant damage. Owner-operator Mike Larson has been in the pest control business in Central Oregon since 2002, and he’s developed an approach that goes way beyond period mitigation measures like spraying. “I’m more an integ... Full story
Erika Bolstad, a Portland-based journalist, followed the thread of family lore back to North Dakota to pick up the trail of her great-grandmother Anna, a homesteader in the early 1900s whose husband committed her to an asylum under mysterious circumstances. Bolstad’s journey became her book “Windfall” — finished during a residency at Pine Meadow Ranch Center For Arts & Agriculture in Sisters. Bolstad returns to Sisters on Thursday, January 26, to share her work at Pauli... Full story
A friend of mine here in Sisters once held high military rank that came with serious responsibilities. His job required that he handle sensitive, classified material. I asked him the other day what would have happened if he kept a tranche of classified documents, say, in an office at his golf resort, or in a garage next to his Corvette. “You mean after my court-martial?” was his response. At a minimum, he would have been fired — career over, pension at risk. He mig... Full story
While I was out delivering your Nugget a couple of weeks ago, I listened to the final episode of “Revolutions,” a podcast by historian Mike Duncan. Many a Tuesday evening of chucking newspaper bundles has been filled with this monumental achievement of historical storytelling, which started back in 2013 with the English Civil Wars of the 17th Century and concluded last year with a deep dive into the Russian Revolution. I am of the belief that you can’t understand the world... Full story
Back in 1980 the original Sisters Library—630 square feet and built in the 1930s—was lifted off its foundation, loaded on a trailer, and moved a few blocks to a new location. It was not long, however, before the community outgrew that building, as well as another 2,600-square-foot space built in 1989. In 2005, the current 8,300-square-foot Sisters Library began serving the public as part of the Deschutes Public Library System. Almost 20 years later the Sisters... Full story
The family of Maria Aviles Tapia, who died in a single-vehicle car accident on Thursday, December 23, is profoundly grateful to the Sisters community for the outpouring of support the family has received in the face of their tragedy. “They’ve been doing such a good support for the family and the kids,” said Maria’s brother Jaime Tapia. “I really, really want to say thank you.” Tapia, 38, died when the vehicle she was a passenger in slid on ice heading west toward Sisters jus... Full story
7 will mark 30 years that my wife Marilyn and I have lived in Sisters. Newly-married in 1993, we were California refugees, getting out of a state that had gone rotten with riot and congestion. We grew up on the fringes of the great concrete jungle, so we were oriented toward mountains and ponderosa pines, and we found what we were looking for in Sisters. We chose the place because Marilyn had a job offer from Phil Arends, who operated a thriving travel agency called Desert... Full story
A group of Sisters youths built a Lego robot and turned it loose in First Lego League competition at Mountain View High School on Sunday, December 11. Their robot made an outstanding run and the group just missed qualifying for state competition. The Broken Top Builders — fifth graders Amelia Folin, Arora Restani, Wesley Womack, and Mallory Perry; fourth graders Jordan Oathes, Brecken Poulos, and Will Bulloch; and seventh grader Nona Smith — have been practicing... Full story
Sisters artist Jim Horsley has painted landscapes, Western scenes, and military-inspired works. Now he has embarked on a magnum opus project that brings together his passion for painting with the Christian faith that underpins his life. In collaboration with his pastor, Steve Stratos of Sisters Community Church, Horsley is creating an art installation titled “Reflections of Jesus,” which will hang at the church. In an overview of the project, Horsley explained: “The colle... Full story
Sisters Library will soon be under construction, in a major remodeling project that is expected to last through August. Local patrons will still be able to order books and pick up holds, and access other services at the library’s temporary facility. “Basically, it’s a trailer,” said Lynne Mildenstein, Deschutes Public Library’s (DPL) assistant director of operations. “It’s going to sit on the corner of Cedar [Street] and Main [Avenue].” The trailer is 24-by-40 feet, offering... Full story
My family is full of “themers,” which is a slightly more glamorous term for “nerd.” Virtually everything we do somehow gets spun up into the context of some song or story. Take mashed potatoes, for example. My role in the preparation of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner is limited to wielding the sharp implements. Carving the bird, sure— but before that I’m handed a bagful of potatoes and a peeler, and given a wide berth to make the peelings fly. This is all in service... Full story
’Tis the season for shopping. There’s nothing wrong with that — humans have an instinct for trade as strong as our instinct to explore and to build. It can get out of hand, of course, but shopping for gifts can be a delightful and uplifting experience. It depends a lot on how you do it. There’s nothing uplifting about storming a Walmart on Black Friday, trampling anyone in the way of your big-screen TV purchase. That’s not how we roll in Sisters. Here we have a rich ec... Full story
Rampant development and land-use conflicts. Pandemic illness. Economic instability and anxiety. Gun control. We could be talking about issues affecting Oregonians in 2022 — or we could be talking about issues affecting Puritan colonists and the Wampanoag Confederacy in 1675 New England. One of the things that makes the study of history so compelling is the way the same kinds of trials and tribulations resonate across centuries. An old saying, usually attributed to Mark... Full story
Outdoor School is a beloved tradition for Oregon sixth-graders. This year, however, it’s become a focus of controversy over how gender identity is handled at Camp Tamarack, and how parents were — or were not — informed about it. The issue gained broad attention last month when the Culver School District, on October 17, pulled students from a three-day/two-night excursion to the camp west of Sisters after some of them reported feeling uncomfortable with the g... Full story
Measure 114 may seem to some folks like a reasonable effort to quell the violence we’ve all seen play out across the country — and right here in Central Oregon. It’s not. The measure creates a permit-to-purchase system that is built to fail, imposing an unfunded administrative burden on law enforcement that will cost local departments significantly, and take resources away from actual public safety work. And it leaves legitimate, law-abiding gun purchasers high and dry... Full story
On Saturday, October 29, my clan will head down to Bend for a Thoroughly Modern Productions staging of my favorite Shakespeare play, “Macbeth.” I’ve seen many a version on the screen, but this will be my first time seeing The Scottish Play as it was intended, as live theater. It’s just the thing for the Halloween weekend, since “Macbeth” is the spookiest and most supernaturally laden of Shakespeare’s plays. Even people who know nothing else about the play recognize the... Full story
Being homeless is not a crime. The local Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office substation in Sisters is tasked with the delicate task of dealing appropriately with a houseless population and citizen concerns. Lt. Chad Davis will be one of the panelists in a Town Hall, “Houseless in Sisters,” on Thursday, October 20. Lt. Davis told The Nugget that much of deputies’ time spent in dealing with issues around unhoused people in the community involve trying to find solutions to problem... Full story
Clive Rainey’s passion for creating housing for those in need remains undiminished, after decades of service with Habitat for Humanity — which started with him stepping up as the organization’s first volunteer on April 1, 1977. His journey with Habitat took him to Africa, where he worked in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and in Uganda in the wake of the genocide perpetrated by its dictator Idi Amin. He retired as a paid staff member and moved to Gua... Full story
