Cheathams are rodeo grand marshals

Jim and Carrie Cheatham are this year's Sisters Rodeo Grand Marshals.

Jim and Carrie Cheatham of Sisters have been selected as Grand Marshals for the 2001 Sisters Rodeo parade to be held Saturday, June 9 at 9:30 a.m. on Cascade Avenue in downtown Sisters.

The Cheathams were selected because of their long service to the rodeo and to the Sisters community, said Rodeo President Glenn Miller.

"We're pleased that Jim and Carrie have accepted the Board's invitation to be our Grand Marshals for this year," Miller said. "They both have played a major role in the development of the Sisters Rodeo to where we are today, and the board wanted to recognize them for their efforts."

Jim and Carrie are best known in the Sisters area as the owners of The Gallery Restaurant in Sisters, one of the major landmarks for both local residents and visitors.

The couple met while attending high school in Salem, married and moved to Bend in 1978 to operate the Juniper Cafª. In August, 1979, they moved to Sisters to assume operation of The Gallery Restaurant that fall.

"We were like a lot of people," Jim said, "we came to Central Oregon almost every weekend, mainly in the winter to snowmobile. We finally decided we had better find a job here so we could live here full time."

Their association with the Sisters Rodeo goes back many years.

Jim was in charge of rodeo concessions for 15 years and served on the Board of Directors for 10 years, including two years as Rodeo President in 1984 and 1985.

More recently, he has cooked the "slack" breakfast on Thursday morning of rodeo week, retiring from that job last year.

He still helps out and recently cooked fish and chips for rodeo volunteers who were getting the grounds ready for the big weekend.

Carrie served on the Rodeo Queen Selection Committee for three years, was in charge of the box seats for four years, helped out in the announcer's stand and helped Jim with the concessions for several years. She was also on a drill team for three years that performed at the Sisters Rodeo and other rodeos.

She was also a member of the "stick horses" drill team that performed in one rodeo parade.

Carrie also served as president of the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce for two years. Jim served on the chamber Board of Directors for three years and on the Sisters planning commission for three years.

When the Cheathams first became involved with the Sisters Rodeo, it was just in the process of relocating to its present location from another site east of Sisters.

"We moved the bleachers and because I worked at the restaurant on weekends, I would go out to the rodeo grounds on several days during the week to work. I remember peeling all the posts for the first fence around the grounds," Jim said.

After a few years of getting the restaurant in operation, they both had more time to volunteer for rodeo activities.

Carrie remembers her first rodeo weekend as "pretty wild," almost getting hit in The Back Room lounge of The Gallery.

"People were so destructive. It got pretty scary and it overwhelmed us," Carrie recalled.

While they had not been to the Sisters Rodeo before coming to Sisters, they had been to the St. Paul Rodeo in western Oregon and Jim's father has been President of Chief Joseph's Days in northeastern Oregon. Both agree that in recent years, the Sisters Rodeo has become a popular family event without all the wild times of their first few years.

In recent years, the Cheathams have traveled to a home they have in Mexico in December, returning to their Squaw Creek Canyon residence in April.

When notified of their selection as Grand Marshals, Jim said, "I was surprised. It is quite an honor to be chosen when you look back over the years at those who have been selected."

Carrie's reaction was "I'm not old enough."