News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sorted by date Results 1 - 19 of 19
Steven K. Boley, formerly of Sisters, will serve more than seven years in prison for sex abuse. Judge Alta Brady handed down the sentence on Tuesday, February 4. The abuse involved a stepdaughter, starting when the girl was about seven years old and lasting till she was about 16. The girl is now in college. The abuse involved a variety of acts. The girl told her mother about the abuse and she confronted Boley. Boley acknowledged inappropriate behavior, but police were not notified at that time. Boley maintained control over h... Full story
Nicolas Yopp is a stand-out member of the Sisters High School Ski Team. He is headed to Sweden for the Deaflympics. Photo provided Skiing sensation Nicolas Yopp hopes to dazzle audiences at the 2003 Deaflympics in Sundsvall, Sweden, this month. Yopp is a senior at Sisters High School and has been a standout member of the ski team for four years. He is hearing impaired. Yopp started skiing early in life, hitting the snow at the tender age of 18 months. Yopp and his family caught wind of the Deaflympics a little over a year... Full story
Deschutes County Sheriff Les Stiles is pulling a fiscal rabbit out of the hat to avoid some budget cuts this year. And the rabbit has Greg Brown's name on it. "We took a $112,000 hit in January and we're likely to take another $50,000 hit in February," Stiles said last week when asked about the impact on his office of state revenue shortages and the failure of Measure 28. The combined $162,000 is a reduction in grant-in-aid funding to the county from the state Department of Corrections. But Stiles is not planning to make... Full story
Sisters High School and Sisters Elementary School received the highest possible grade -- "exceptional" -- on the annual school report cards issued by the state last week. They were among only four high schools and 91 elementary schools receiving that mark across the state. Only two other schools in Central Oregon, Amity and Jewell elementary schools in Bend, were included in the elite group. The 1999 Legislature passed the law making the report cards mandatory. They rate all public schools in Oregon on a four-point scale,... Full story
Ron Paradis of COCC explained cuts to College Centers at a Sisters meeting last week. Photo by Conrad Weiler Local residents weighed the future of Central Oregon Community College's Sisters Center in a meeting with college officials at Sisters Elementary School last week. COCC faces an approximately $3 million shortfall for the 2003-2004 fiscal year for the entire COCC operation including regional centers such as Sisters. Hopes for some relief from Measure 28 passage were dashed in the January 28 election. Across-the-board... Full story
Sisters High School has a near-zero dropout rate. During the last school year (2001-02), only three of the 453 students enrolled at the beginning of the year withdrew before the year was over. This produced an official dropout rate of .66 percent, according to an annual report issued earlier this month by the State Department of Education. Sisters' experience is part of a favorable story across the state. The statewide dropout rate for 2001-02 was 4.9 percent, representing the fourth consecutive year the rate has fallen. It... Full story
The Sisters School Board decided Monday night to cut one more day from the current school year. They chose Tuesday, February 18. The board had already tentatively decided to cut four days from the calendar; that's the reason schools opened four days later than normal last September. In light of the failure of State Measure 28 in last month's election, the board quickly made that reduction official at its Monday meeting. It then added a fifth day to the cut list on the recommendation of Superintendent Steve Swisher, who had... Full story
The flu is here. The first confirmed cases of Influenza A and B for the season were documented in Bend late last month, according to Dr. May Fan of the Bend Memorial Clinic Sisters office. These are the strains targeted by the flu vaccine and, according to Dr. Fan, "it's not too late to get a flu shot." Those hit with the flu will have little doubt; it comes on suddenly with headache, sore throat, chills and painful muscle aches. "You get hit hard right from the beginning," Dr. Fan said. Influenza -- real influenza -- is... Full story
The bewildering array of social services that receive at least some government support in Oregon is composed of two large groups today -- the lucky and the unlucky. The lucky are the ones that depend primarily on federal, local or private funding. The unlucky are those that depend heavily on the state general fund, the main operating fund of state government. With the failure of Measure 28, the state general fund is expected to fall about 20 percent short of the revenue expected when the Legislature adopted the 2001-2003... Full story
Joanne Shook puts a llama through its paces. Photo provided A llama amongst a flock of sheep is a guardian, protecting his charges from predators. Some llamas have a natural aversion to strange four-legged creatures entering their space, and will aggressively protect that area. Some horse owners keep a llama to make the llama an everyday sight so their horse won't bolt if they meet one on the trail. Many llamas in a field are likely breeding stock, supplying the shrinking but still enthusiastic market. Still others are show... Full story
Dr. Steven Greer. Photo by Kathryn Godsiff Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is not generally a topic of discussion around the dinner table. A sexually transmitted disease which can cause genital warts, it is also one of the main causes of abnormal Pap smears. As such, it becomes one of the main precursors of cervical cancer in women. Apart from abstinence, there has previously been no means of prevention for this disease, and methods of treatment are not always effective. Dr. Steven Greer is working with a team of other... Full story
The new rodeo poster depicts bareback bronc riding. Artwork by Suzi Sheward Sisters artist Suzi Sheward has completed the poster for the 2003 Sisters Rodeo. The poster is now for sale at the Sisters Rodeo Office, 220 W. Cascade Avenue. Sheward has a degree in commercial and advertising art and an appreciation of the pulp magazines from the 1930s and '40s -- elements that played into the poster's layout. During the heyday of the pulps there were hundreds of different publications and the ones that sold best had the most... Full story
Frank Deggendorfer will serve on the Deschutes County Fair Board after his selection last week by the Deschutes County Commissioners. Deggendorfer will replace long-serving fair volunteer Don Miltenberger on the Deschutes County Fair Board. The fair board is an oversight board of directors, appointed by the Board of County Commissioners, whose job is to oversee the management of the Deschutes County Fair and Expo Center. Deggendorfer was a high school and college teacher locally and he and his wife Kathy owned Columbia... Full story
Marta VanPatten (right) studied meditation in India. Photo provided Marta VanPatten will return to India at the end of the month to take another course in the study of Vipassana, a 2,500-year-old meditation technique. The Camp Sherman resident plans to volunteer her services at the Kutch Vipassana Center, where the course is taught. The center is located in Bada, in Kutch, India and is one of the largest and most remote centers that teach the ancient technique. Mango, guava and pomegranate trees shade the 100-acre complex.... Full story
The Sisters High School varsity boys ski team served up an exciting come-from-behind victory in fourth race of the Central Oregon High School Ski League on Saturday, February 1. The victory in the race, held in conjunction with Mt. Bachelor's Winterfest celebration, allowed the Outlaws to increase the points lead over Bend High School for the league title. Karana Ellis of Sisters won the boys event with a time of 1:55.470 over Bend High's Michael Timm (1:56.140) and Lex Wienike of Summit High (1:57.320). Sisters' Raman Ellis... 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: Your January 29... Full story
Mere weeks ago in Bend, Sierra Club activists and others rallied with Governor John Kitzhaber in support of Ted Kulongoski's gubernatorial campaign. That was then. Now, some of those same people are indignant over Kulongoski's selection of State Forester Jim Brown as his chief environmental advisor. In most circles, Brown is considered a moderate with a balanced approach to environmental issues. Activists don't like moderation. In response to the appointment, extremists made the curious accusation that Kulongoski favors jobs... Full story
- A deputy gave a Sisters man a courtesy ride to the hospital in hopes that the man can get help for the chronic pain he is enduring as the result of injuries from his military career. - A resident called police concerned about people yelling and a child screaming nearby. The noise turned out to be from a party. The screaming child had got in trouble over a water gun. Everything was okay, except for one out-of-sorts kid. - A resident reported that her dog had been attacked by her neighbor's dog. She did not actually see the n... Full story
Everyone in Sisters has noticed that we have seemingly jumped into spring -- at the beginning of February. Spring-like conditions in the high country are creating early runoff. Snowfall levels hovered around 7,500 to 8,000 feet last week. What could have been a nice winter snowstorm was instead a fairly heavy rain over much of the Sisters country. The runoff from the recent rainfall in the mountains caused the water level in Suttle Lake to rise within an inch of the floor level at Suttle Lake Resort's restaurant, submerging... Full story
