News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Extra / Inside Scoop


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  • What's Your Favorite Newspaper?

    Jim Cornelius|Updated Oct 4, 2024

    My favorite newspaper? I reckon I've put out about 1,500 editions of The Nugget over the past three decades - and the August 28 edition has to be one of my favorite issues ever. Mostly that's down to the element that makes Sisters a cool place to live and do business: people. This edition holds our quarterly feature section, Neighbors - this one with a Labor Day theme of "Neighbors at Work." It's a privilege and a pleasure to highlight people not because they did something...

  • Covering Sisters government agencies

    Jim Cornelius|Updated Jul 25, 2024

    Sisters’ government agencies play a big role in the community — from City Hall to the school district, from the U.S. Forest Service to fire and police services. Covering the functions and actions of those agencies is one of our responsibilities. Local government has a big impact on the community. Sisters is deeply invested in the success of our schools, and there is a high level of interest in what goes in in the classroom, on performance stages and athletic fields. Sisters fo...

  • More than a newspaper

    Jim Cornelius|Updated Jul 25, 2024

    While The Nugget staff and freelancers put out our weekly newspaper 52 weeks a year, year in and year out, the paper is far from our only publication. We produce programs for organizations and agencies across Central Oregon, the visitors guide that is a primary marketing tool for Sisters, and a now-biannual magazine. The spring edition of Spirit of Central Oregon is on the street now - and it is one of my favorite projects in more than 30 years of creating content at The...

  • Covering the tough stuff

    Jim Cornelius|Updated Apr 11, 2024

    Every once in a while, Sisters kicks up a story that is tough to cover. When you live and work in a small town, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to know the family involved in a car accident, or the people whose house burned down, or the victim or perpetrator of a crime. The recent issue involving Sisters High School choir and Americana Project teacher Rick Johnson, who was placed on leave after an obviously sketchy text exchange with a former student came to lig...

  • The Power of Story

    Jim Cornelius|Updated Apr 11, 2024

    The Nugget believes in the power of Story. Since you are here backing us up with your support, it's pretty safe to assume you do, too. The work that keeps us going week in and week out is the effort to tell the stories of the people of our community, in all their wide diversity in age, background and experience. When I first started writing for The Nugget 30 years ago, I wasn't sure how deep the well of Story would be here. Turns out, it's bottomless. A couple of weeks back, I...

  • From the Front Desk

    Lisa May|Updated Apr 11, 2024

    In my role at the front desk of The Nugget I get to handle a wide variety of tasks, from managing databases for subscriptions and classifieds to designing the weekly Announcements page and even a bit of display ad design. But there is no aspect of my job that I enjoy more than interacting with the people of Sisters. Some folks just come in to The Nugget to visit one of the staff members and others bring news in need of reporting. Some people stopping by the office are...

  • From our Community Marketing Partner

    Vicki Curlett|Updated Apr 11, 2024

    When I started with The Nugget almost six years ago, the term sales was on the display advertising employee’s card. Generally speaking, through the many sales and marketing jobs I have held for 45+ years, I have always shied away from the term sales because, in my view, I don’t sell, I help people make buying decisions. So I asked that my title be changed to Community Marketing Partner because that is exactly what I hope to be. My goal is to come alongside businesses to help them grow. Whether big business or small, each has...

  • Getting The Nugget out on the street

    Jim Cornelius|Updated Apr 11, 2024

    It takes a bit of doing to get The Nugget into your mailbox on Wednesday morning, and to the businesses around town. We print The Nugget in Wenatchee, Washington, on one of the few remaining presses in the Pacific Northwest that can print in the configuration we've had for years, with color on every page. For many years, we printed at The Bulletin on Tuesday afternoon, and I hauled it up from Bend. When The Bulletin sold its facility and decommissioned its fine German press,...

  • November 10, 2023 Inside Scoop

    Jim Cornelius|Updated Nov 13, 2023

    Nugget Special Publications Leith Easterling is the longest-serving member of The Nugget team, with more than three decades in a variety of roles at the newspaper. Currently, she handles bookkeeping, designs ads, and platoons with Jess Draper on layout of the newspaper. She is the project manager and designer of the annual Sisters Oregon Guide. Forty thousand copies of what we call SOG go out across the region to act as a guide for tourists, long-term visitors and prospective...

  • October 12, 2023 Inside Scoop

    Jess Draper|Updated Nov 13, 2023

    Hello Nugget supporters! I'm Jess Draper, creative director here at The Nugget. I've been laying out our beloved newspaper for the last 18 years! Over the last year I've been blessed to share the task with my stellar co-worker Leith Easterling (who handled the task before I joined the staff), allowing me some space for special projects like Spirit of Central Oregon (which, by the way, is hitting the streets as you read this). Going from a blank template to a newspaper filled...

  • September 22, 2023 Inside Scoop

    Jim Cornelius|Updated Nov 13, 2023

    The newspaper enterprise My partner in ownership of The Nugget also owns a paper that was founded by William F. Cody - Buffalo Bill. As a lifelong frontier history nerd, you can imagine how this pleases me. The photo accompanying this newsletter is the only known photo of the old scout and Western showman in the offices of The Cody Enterprise, which he launched with his friend Col. John Peake in 1899. Buffalo Bill founded the town of Cody, Wyoming, including developing the Irm...

  • August 8, 2023 Inside Scoop

    Jim Cornelius|Updated Nov 13, 2023

    Dissecting Page 2 Page 2 of The Nugget gets a lot of attention - as it should. It's the spot where Sisters comes to share its opinions, its grievances, and its appreciation. A fellow journalist who works in public radio said that she appreciated The Nugget's Letters to the Editor. "They're spicy!" she said. Sometimes, for sure. Our preference is to run every letter we get, and mostly that works out. I really want all the voices in the community to be heard. Sometimes people...

  • July 11, 2023 Inside Scoop

    Jim Cornelius|Updated Nov 13, 2023

    Hello Nugget supporters: The staff here at The Nugget thought it would be fun and interesting to share some of the inner workings of the paper with those who have stepped up to support our work. Hence, this newsletter. What's news: The big news item this month should be a planning commission ruling on the Space Age Gas renovation. The City of Sisters Planning Staff has recommended denial of the application on the basis of incompatibility with the neighborhood. The PC left the...