Swim team will train at Sisters Inn

More Sisters students will have an opportunity to swim competitively this year.

For the first time in 10 years the Outlaws swim team has secured a second training facility and a volunteer coach to give the large number of students trying out for swimming a chance to participate, according to coach Isolde Hedemark.

Hedemark reported that Sisters High School (SHS) Site Council member Lori Hancock and SHS Volunteer Coordinator Ann Jacobsen approached Dave Elliott, manager of the Sisters Inn, about possible use of the motel pool facility.

Swimmers have used the Black Butte Ranch Glaze Meadow Pool facilities for years.

Kathy Stuwe, Sisters resident and wife of Boyd Stuwe, volunteer coach for the boys tennis team 2006, will take charge of the group at the inn, Hedemark said.

Elliott is donating an hour of pool time three days a week to the 10 swimmers who could not be accommodated at the Black Butte Ranch pool.

“Without this facility a substantial number of athletes would have been cut again,” Hedemark said.

More than 30 athletes have tried out for the team each year for the past five seasons, according to the coach.

The school budget only covers coaching fees for swimming (a standard policy for most sports) and teams must rely on fund-raising to cover travel costs, uniforms and accommodations fees for travel to meets.

“To receive facilities free of charge is enormous,” Hedemark said.

“Interest in swimming has incurred a steady climb the past few years and has come up on the wish list of the annual Sisters High School student surveys,” Hedemark said. “The successes of the swim team have probably played a role in this, but I attribute this development also to the desire by a number of kids to participate in a worthwhile, lifelong activity that is not very injury prone.”