News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sorted by date Results 1 - 15 of 15
Fire Chief Taylor Robertson confers with City Manager Eileen Stein on burn-to-learn plans. photo by Jim Cornelius The old Sisters Middle School will go up in smoke this weekend as dozens of firefighters from all over Central Oregon use the facility for realistic live-fire training. A team of fire department commanders and training officers is finalizing plans for the burn, which will take place in stages over two days, Saturday and Sunday, February 7-8. The streets around the... Full story
Sisters Elementary School was the local star of the 2002-03 school "report card" issued last week by the Oregon Department of Education. The elementary school maintained the same Exceptional rating it earned the year before. Sisters Middle School retained its same Satisfactory mark while the high school slipped from Exceptional to Satisfactory. The grading system has five levels: Exceptional, Strong, Satisfactory, Low and Unacceptable. The overall ratings take into account student scores on statewide tests, score... Full story
A global epidemic has hit Sisters. This past week email viruses have plagued most users from big business to small, including the personal user. The plague is costing the U.S. business sector billions of dollars. "This is a huge problem," said Jon Renner, director of OutlawNet. "Everybody is getting clobbered by it. I've had several customers call and they're angry at me." This strain of computer virus arrives in an email attachment. As soon as the user opens the attachment the virus, which is a program, then directs the... Full story
The ongoing debate over the future of Camp Sherman's Lake Creek Lodge continued last week at a Salem appeal hearing before the state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA). For the past nine months, brothers Gordon and Jeff Jones, owners of Lake Creek Lodge, have been moving their proposal for adding 23 new cabins, a meeting hall and refurbishing the existing cabins through a series of governmental processes. This included meetings with Camp Sherman's Local Area Council (LAC), Jefferson County's Planning Commission and the... Full story
Bill Duehren has read with students for 11 years. More readers are needed. photo by Torri Barco Every week for 11 years, retired resident Bill Duehren has volunteered an hour to read with young children. "If they can read, they can learn anything," Duehren said. "If they can't read, they can't learn anything." Start Making A Reader Today (SMART), a book and reading program for children, opened in 1992 at Sisters Elementary School. At that time, Sisters was one of only eight schools in Oregon to meet the low-income ratio... Full story
The community of Sisters may enjoy the performance abilities of the Sisters School District Jazz Bands in a concert on Thursday, February 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Sisters High School auditorium. The Sisters Middle School and High School Jazz Bands concert will also feature some of the outstanding adult jazz players from the Central Oregon region. All the guest adult players performing in the concert have performed in some capacity as professional musicians at one time and all of them continue to be active performers on their... Full story
A GFP Enterprises, Inc. crew prepares to hit the fire line on the B&B Complex Fire. photo courtesy GFP Enterprises, Inc. After a tough fire season -- battling some wildland fires close to home -- a private Sisters contract firefighting company has earned recognition from the federal government for outstanding work. GFP Enterprises, Inc. received a Best Performance Award from the U.S. Forest Service and the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. The company also... Full story
This spring, the Deschutes Basin Land Trust (DBLT) will move forward on the Metolius Basin Project. On April 17, 2002, the Land Trust announced that Willamette Industries had offered it an option to purchase 1,240 acres of the forest land on Lake Creek. DBLT met its Friday, July 25, deadline to purchase the land. The purchase required a Herculean fund-raising effort that targeted $3 million for the purchase and for restoration and management of the property on this principal tributary of the Metolius River. The acquisition... Full story
Leading students into temptation... photo by Torri Barco Fatty foods and sugary pops sell -- and that's a problem for local educators in the wake of the national growth spurt of childhood obesity. Cheese fries and pizza are school cafeteria favorites, district officials say, and sometimes needed just to get students to purchase a meal (see "School cafeterias take on obesity," The Nugget, January 28, 2004, page 4). Soda pop vending machines are also tempting sources of low-value calories. The machines generate large funds for... Full story
Sisters eighth graders learn winter survival skills. photo by Kathy Mansker Sisters eighth graders headed to the snowy slopes of Hoodoo Ski Area on Friday, January 30, for a winter retreat. About 100 students learned to build snow caves, participated in team-building exercises, tried Nordic skiing or snowshoeing and talked about integrating personal goals into a broader vision. It's all part of an effort to build camaraderie and leadership in the class. According to Principal... Full story
Multnomah Publishers periodically scales back production and lays off employees in order to gain ground in a tough market. The company on January 8 announced the elimination of 15 positions -- meaning 15 people laid off --and a restructuring of the company (The Nugget, January 28, page 3). In this industry, books equal employees. As book production tapers off, staff is stripped down as well. Kyle Cummings, Senior Vice President, explained that the number of positions Multnomah employs is directly impacted by the number of... Full story
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer's name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. To the Editor: To paraphrase the w... Full story
- City Council Meeting 7 p.m., 2nd and 4th Thursday each month, Sisters City Hall. 549-6022. - School Board Meeting 7 p.m., 2nd Monday each month, middle school lecture/drama room. 549-8521. - Black Butte School District Board of Directors meets 2nd Tuesday of each month, 7 p.m., Black Butte School. 595-6203. - Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce meets the 3rd Tuesday of each month, 8 to 9 a.m. at Sisters Fire Hall, 549-0251. - Sisters-Camp Sherman RFPD meets for drill every Monday, 7 p.m. Sisters Fire Hall, 301 S. Elm St.... Full story
- Deputies dealt with multiple abandoned cars around Sisters. - Highway 126 was the scene of a lot of action. A deputy was forced to kill an injured elk on the highway; a motorist helped a deputy move a large boulder out of the roadway near Dry Canyon; and there was an accident east of the interchange with Highway 20. - A man complained that another driver attempted to run him off the road. - A deputy delivered a warning to a man who has allegedly been harassing people at a Sisters business. - A man reported that someone... Full story
Some local residents are worried a proposed Hood Avenue/Main Avenue couplet will create three busy streets instead of one. To help prevent such an outcome, the Couplet Advisory Committee at its Monday, January 26, meeting expressed a unanimous desire to see heavy truck traffic aggressively diverted off Cascade Avenue and onto the Hood Avenue and Main Avenue arms of the couplet. The 20-person committee met for its monthly meeting to refine plans to design an east-bound Hood Avenue and a west-bound Main Avenue couplet. The... Full story
