News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sorted by date Results 1 - 16 of 16
It was late June, but there was frost on my bedroll when I woke up in the dark at the Murphy Ranch cow camp on South Flat, about 25 miles up the Chewaucan River from Paisley, Oregon. I was there — along with cinematographer Samuel Pyke — to begin filming The Len Babb Movie Project, which was an idea that flashed into my head two months earlier while riding my colt. I had just finished watching a couple of documentary films about cowboys and the life —... Full story
In health and fitness there is a common fallacy that leaves some people stuck and not making progress. This person’s intentions are pure, their motivation high. It’s not lack of ability; the cards aren’t stacked against them; they are not “too far gone.” This person leads a perfect life four or five days a week then when something derails perfection, it’s all over. A person chasing perfection will sideline basic skill, habit, and behavior-building and seek out absolute purity. Once perfection cracks, all is out the window and... Full story
“If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream.” — Edward Abbey Modern living offers us many blessings. Who would seriously want to live in a world without antibiotics and hot showers? But our modern comforts and conveniences come with a cost. Most folks are completely disconnected from whe... Full story
Just about everyone who reads, watches or listens to nature stories is familiar with the plight of monarch butterflies in the Western United States. Their numbers have dropped from millions to thousands in the last 20 years for a variety of reasons, most wrapped around habitat and their food plant, milkweed. Well, there I was over at Clarno, on the banks of the John Day River, visiting and delighting in the large milkweed growing operation the Bureau of Land Management and... Full story
I don’t watch much on television when it comes to sports — or anything else for that matter, — but the Summer Olympics usually keeps me riveted to the screen. Especially when it comes to the track and field and the marathon. The Tokyo Olympics were originally scheduled to start last week, but the pandemic has postponed the Games until 2021. Given the way the pandemic is going, and the toll it has taken on the health, economies, and stamina of the world, I wonder i... Full story
For Sisters Folk Festival, “Close to Home” meant just that — bringing live music close to home in Sisters Country. Last Saturday, Sisters Folk Festival (SFF) put on their first live, in-person music event since the start of the pandemic in March. For a few weeks, they were doing Bandwagon performances where local musicians played tunes on the back of a trailer rolling through town. They had also done a livestream for the My Own Two Hands fundraiser auction event onl... Full story
The Pole Creek Fire in September 2012 posed a serious threat to Sisters Country. Firefighters and forest managers agree that previous treatments in the fire area — selective thinning, mowing and prescribed burning — made it possible for fire crews to grab and hold the fire and prevent greater devastation to the forest south of town. Deschutes County Board of Commissioners candidate Phil Chang led a small field trip to the fire area on Thursday, July 29, to provide... Full story
The Peterson Ridge Trail, which now has a new trailhead (see related story) has become one of the signature recreational amenities of Sisters. Its creation was a true grassroots effort. Beginning in 1987, Eurosports owner Brad Boyd and a few friends created the first “lollipop” section of a trail out into the Deschutes National Forest, south of town. Two years later in 1989 it was ready for use. The trail went out into the forest, made a loop at the end, and returned alo... Full story
Peterson Ridge Trail, a popular destination for cyclists, hikers and runners across the Pacific Northwest, has a new trailhead. It took a concerted collaborative effort to get a project approved, funded, designed, and to build the new 25-space parking lot with restrooms and a soon-to-be-completed kiosk for trail information and maps. The old trailhead, located on the south side of Sisters off Elm Street and Tyee Drive, has for a long time been inadequate to keep up with the... Full story
“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.” - — H. L. Mencken, 1917 I’ve been thinking about this quote recently because it seems especially relevant today, more than a century later. My professional experience includes 30 years of police work, both in the military and as an officer, detective, and supervisor in Los Angeles Police. The human problem that concerns us all is how best to rethink and reform policing in our communities. Two questions must be addre... Full story
The Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in downtown Portland, which has become the epicenter of more than two months of protests and clashes between rioters and federal law enforcement bears the name of one of the truly great Oregonians. Mark Hatfield was not a mere politician — he was a genuine public servant; a statesman, in fact. A state representative, state senator, governor and U.S. Senator, Hatfield served Oregon and America for almost a half a century, and was, with... Full story
To the Editor: I am anxious enough living in a time of pandemic and so limit myself to about 30 minutes of reading the news about the latest outrage from Trump. Unfortunately, I stumbled across the opinion piece by Jim Cornelius published July 29 opining on the Portland Troubles (“Echoes of tumult,” page 6). If evidence-free “both sides do it” nonsense is the best thing he can do, he should stop. “[S]omebody was going to take action” he says. You mean like tear-gassing peaceful protestors, stopping bystanders and demanding id... Full story
There is a weed among us, and we need to be on the lookout for it because, left to its own devices, it will take over our fields, gardens, public rights-of way, and stream beds. Knapweed (Centaurea maculosa) fools some people because it looks like a wildflower — but “wild” is the operative word. When the flowers of the weed are through blooming, which is about this time of the summer, they form fluffy white seed heads that blow in the wind, leading to approximately five... Full story
In a letter shared with school district staff and families dated July 30, Superintendent Curtiss Scholl announced that school will be conducted under Comprehensive Distance Learning (CDL) model for the first six weeks of the 2020-21 school year, based on health metrics in Deschutes County. Scholl’s announcement came just two days after Governor Kate Brown’s press conference which outlined the latest state and county health guidelines that are required to allow in-person education. School districts throughout the state hav... Full story
Search and Rescue teams from across the region coordinated last Saturday to recover the body of a climber who fell to his death on Mt. Jefferson last week. According to Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Atkins, on Saturday, July 25, a group of experienced mountain climbers were traversing a glacier on the east side of Mount Jefferson. One of the climbers, David Freepons, 65, from Kennewick, Washington, slipped and fell. Freepons, who had decades of experience, was unable to stop his descent. He fell several hundred feet downhill.... Full story
The arrival of Coast Guard Day this week set me to reminiscing about my years in the U.S. Coast Guard. My personal connection with the Coast Guard actually began early in World War II, before I was even born. In the weeks following the Pearl Harbor attack, my father joined the Coast Guard under what I like to call the “BYOB” program — that’s Bring Your Own Boat. At that time, the Coast Guard had no resources for maritime security patrols; and a program was created for p... Full story
