News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sorted by date Results 1299 - 1323 of 29670
The Lady Outlaws competed against tough teams at the Mt. View Invitational held Thursday and Friday, August 26-27. Due to a lack of officials in Central Oregon, the tournament looked a bit different this year. Instead of pool play followed by bracket play, teams just competed in pool play, and each of those games counted. Sisters started off with a win over Caldera in straight sets, 25-21, 25-21. They found themselves down 8-1 in the second set, but climbed back in and earned the win. After a three-hour break, the Outlaws... Full story
The Outlaws football program currently has 40 players on the roster, up 10 from last season. With the added numbers the Outlaws will have a full nine-game JV schedule. Coach Clayton Hall says that having a JV team will be huge for the development of the athletes and the program. The Outlaws varsity squad return 11 experienced players, including seniors Easton Moore, Adam Maddox-Castle, Mason Sellers, Ben Cooper, Gabe Bailey, Hudson Symonds, Jessey Murillo, and Henry Rard, and juniors Scott Henderson, Dolon Pool, and Tony Gonz... Full story
Pictures of Prineville circa 1880 show a sea of grass and very few trees. The landscape drew ranchers by the hundreds to settle in Central Oregon. Today, like much of the eastern and Central Oregon sagebrush sea, the steppe is covered with juniper, and — more worrisome — cheatgrass. The western juniper is native to Oregon, with frequent references to it being a weed. In the 1870s, settlers raised large numbers of cattle that feasted on the native grasses growing... Full story
Sisters Lady Outlaws return six players from last year’s squad that made it to the State Championship game. They came up just short of their goal last year, but are determined to put in the work needed to make another State appearance, and hopefully compete for the big prize. The six experienced, veteran players include seniors Hannah Fendall and Anna Landon, and juniors Gracie Vohs, Gracelyn Myhre, Bailey Robertson, and Mia Monaghan. These girls are very motivated after coming up short the past two years. Coach Rory Rush s... Full story
Black Butte Ranch Rural Fire Protection District is a combination career and volunteer department that serves approximately three square miles, an area almost double Sisters’ 1.88 square miles. The department covers the resort community, which has a year-round population of about 300 residents and a destination population that can be as high as 5,000 during the peak summer months. In addition, District personnel provide advanced life support emergency medical services, v... Full story
Beth Wood, poet and local musician, is releasing her latest full-length album. Wood moved to Sisters from Portland in April of 2020 during the beginning stages of the COVID-19 shutdown. “It was a weird time to move for sure, but I had to move out of the house I was in, in Portland, and I was also realizing that I am not a city girl,” said Wood. Wood has always had a soft place in her heart for the Sisters community after coming here for many years as an artist and ins... Full story
COVID-19 put many local happenings on hold for a long time, one of those being the Tuesday senior lunches sponsored by the Central Oregon Council on Aging at Sisters Community Church. Those in-person lunches have started up again, and the organizers hope to see many familiar and new faces on Tuesdays. Prior to COVID-19, they regularly had about seven tables filled for lunch, and their restart has been a little slow. The meals are appreciated by those who participate, as... Full story
Former 900 Wall chef de cuisine Chris Leyden and wife, Emma Reko, who are owners of The Feast Food Company in Redmond will be preparing the dishes for the Seed to Table Fall Harvest Dinner. The event is on September 10 and takes place at the Seed to Table (S2T) farm. Chef Chris is thrilled to prepare the feast featuring S2T produce and locally grown products. There will be three courses featured in a family-style format. Tickets for the event are still available but usually sell out quickly. The dinner takes place on the S2T... Full story
It started in 2019. Jennie Sharp, local educator and mom, thought that the kids of Sisters Country should have more access to hands-on theater experience. Local schools offered some programming—including the beloved winter performance by Black Butte School students in Camp Sherman, directed by Sharp herself. Beyond school, though, there didn’t seem to be many options other than driving to Bend. Sharp founded Starshine as a way for kids to create devised theater, using pl... Full story
What’s better than a hug? It’s how we greet an old friend, share triumph and compassion, comfort a child, and embrace our significant other. It wasn’t always that way. Think back to March of 2020, in the first stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We entered a kind of ‘touch desert’ and were instructed not to hug, shake hands, or touch surfaces that others may have touched, in fear of spreading or contracting the virus,” recalls Sisters artist Paul Alan Bennett. People masked... Full story
Jan Baldwin was part of the team that established Sisters Habitat for Humanity in 1991. In 1993, she was asked to help open the Thrift Store, operated to raise funds for the building program and to offer low-cost goods to local families. Baldwin and her husband, Frank, moved to Sisters from Alamo, California in 1989. The couple cherished their family time vacationing in Sisters Country. They knew that eventually they wanted to retire in the area. Jan believes when you move to... Full story
Oregon State Police (OSP) troopers shot and killed two cougars in a neighborhood just northeast of Sisters on Sunday, August 21.... Full story
The complete alternate route around downtown Sisters is closer to a reality as planning and right-of-way acquisition for the Locust/Highway 20 roundabout is ramping up. The third piece of the alternate route involves improvements to Barclay Drive, being designed by Kittleson & Associates. The project began last month, July 2022, with completion of design and bidding tasks expected by March 2023. Construction will occur between March and November 2023. The total cost for... Full story
A friend of mine has a plot of land north of Sisters that he loves as deeply and profoundly as a person can love a place. “I’ll never develop my land,” he told me. “It’s truly wild out there.” This friend of mine is not what you’d picture if you were to commission a forensic sketch of an “environmentalist,” but his depth of ecological understanding and his love for land and landscape is unmatched. He’s what you might call a “green-neck,” a term I hadn’t heard for a whil... Full story
True to plan, M & M Services completed their instream restoration work on Whychus Creek in three weeks. The work involved the stretch of creek from the Locust Street bridge to the Highway 20 bridge where it runs between Creekside Campground and Creekside Park. Four new stone stairways provide designated access to the creek, to reduce wear and tear on the creek banks. The streambed was modified so the concrete that was part of the sewer system is lower in the water and won’t i... Full story
The wait is over. After nearly a year, Toriizaka Art has opened at 222 W. Hood Ave. in the space formerly long occupied by Ken Scott’s Imagination Gallery. The new gallery was rebuilt from the skeleton up — new floors, new walls, new windows, new roof, new plumbing, all-new electric, brand-new kitchenette, and a paint job inside and out. The renovated space is nothing of its former self. The curator, Karen Thomas, has taken art in Sisters to a new height. She and her h... Full story
Traffic Safety Plan (TSP) amendments were adopted in December 2021. Since that time, almost a dozen safety improvements have already been made in the first seven months of 2022, according to Public Works Director Paul Bertagna. This summer and fall six more projects will be completed. Completed: - Developed and approved the 20-mph residential speed zone (Ordinance 521). - Signed and implemented the 20-mph residential speed zone signs (over 100 signs). - Installed four... Full story
The Outlaws boys soccer squad has made steady improvements, and their collective skill and “soccer IQ” has grown tremendously, thanks to Coach Jeff Husmann, who has coached them the past four years. Husmann noted that with the improvement the team’s expectations for success has grown and the boys are up for the challenge. Sisters has shifted to 3A, and the change will allow the Outlaws to be even more competitive. According to Husmann, the seniors are the spirit and identity of this year’s team. They have raised the bar of... Full story
Meadows are rare in the deep forests of Sisters Country. Found near rivers and springs, their deeper loamy soils grow grasses and summer wildflowers and, when wet enough, discourage trees. People have been drawn to meadows for centuries, to camp, graze animals, cultivate grasses, and gaze at a portal to the open sky. If you park at the Allingham Bridge in Camp Sherman and walk upstream on the west side of the Metolius River Trail, you walk beside Allingham Meadow. First you cr... Full story
The Sisters Park & Recreation District (SPRD) childcare program will be able to serve many more families thanks to a funding boost approved by the Deschutes County Commission. Commissioners approved American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to support the SPRD childcare program and Furnish Hope, a local nonprofit that furnishes homes at no cost to families in need. The $25,000 allocated to the Sisters Park & Recreation District is expected to allow the District to serve 30 to 40 additional children between the ages of three... Full story
It was in April that the City brought Jacob Smith on board as its first ever code enforcement officer. He had been in a similar position in Redmond for 13 years. Our July 5 story on overgrown weeds and grass pointed out a sizeable part of Smith’s job. We wanted to get more in-depth with him, to get the bigger picture on his role and how he’s adapting to it. True, “vegetation” issues as he calls them are at the top of his work pile, as we are now into the peak of the summer... Full story
On Saturday, August 6, the town of Sisters lost a local who will be forever missed. Conrad Charles Kiefer was born in Eureka, California, where he lived for most of his childhood until moving to Sisters in 1996. Conrad graduated from Sisters High School in 1999. After High School, he worked as a wildland firefighter. No one knew the Deschutes wilderness better than Conrad. Conrad worked for the City of Sisters, Knife River, and most recently McKenzie Cascade Excavation. He... Full story
On Saturday April 16, Russell John Ribb, Jr. went home into the loving arms of his Savior. Russ was 94, born August 28, 1927, in Sherwood, North Dakota. Being an only child, he enjoyed their move to Donnybrook, North Dakota, being close to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. In 1937, they headed out west to Long Beach, California, and then settled in La Puente. This is where Russ started attending church as a young boy and accepted the Lord as his Savior at age 10.... Full story
Young artists from a creativity camp performed original songs, read poetry, and showed their paintings at Sisters Art Works last Friday. But this camp had a special twist: the kids also created songs inspired by local elders. Earlier in the week, campers attended the senior luncheon at Sisters Community Church. They asked questions, listened, and took notes on their elders’ life stories, favorite foods, and more. Back at camp, youth came up with song ideas based on luncheon co... Full story
The Pole Creek Ranch property has a history of running cattle, elk, llamas, and even a camel, but for the first time Saturday, August 20 it was 120 people of all ages that had run of the place, at the inaugural Giddy-Up Ranch Run sponsored by Run Sisters Run. The Cole family, owners of the ranch, are moving toward allowing a limited number of events on the property in the future and opened the place up for race director Kelly Bither as a way to foster community connections.... Full story
