News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sisters’ wintery Easter weekend weather loosened its grip for a couple of hours on Sunday, April 16, and let the sun shine down on Sisters’ annual Easter Egg Hunt.
As always, it was all over in minutes.
Children from all around Central Oregon swarmed across Creekside City Park and Three Sisters Overnight Park at the sound of a fire engine siren at 1 p.m. They snatched up some 4,000 plastic eggs placed throughout the park by The Sisters-Camp Sherman Volunteer & Ambulance Association and Cloverdale firefighters.
Proving that the joy of the hunt is in the hunt itself, many children kept poking through the brush long after the eggs were gone, hoping they might discover one treasure that had been overlooked.
“I know there’s one more egg out here,” said nine-year-old Aiko Tasaki as adults rounded her and her friends up to leave.
She was right, an egg plopped to the ground right in front of her. However, the evidence pointed to a hole in another hunter’s bag rather than an overlooked egg.
Jana Novotny was enjoying her first Easter in Sisters with her sons Adam and David. She was carrying a braided willow whip, colorfully decorated with a ribbon.
She explained that in her native Czech Republic, boys carry the three-foot whips to smack the girls (gently), who are then to give the boy a decorated egg. A month later, the boy is supposed to give the girl something sweet, like chocolate. Novotny acknowledged that sometimes that part of the equation is forgotten as time slides by.
The Czech tradition played out in the Sisters park as David and Adam chased a couple of girls to poke them with the braided willow. The girls seemed to be successful at eluding them, at least as long as they wanted to.
The Easter Bunny was at his usual post just beyond the covered bridge over Whychus Creek, distributing chocolate eggs — along with big furry hugs — to delighted youngsters.
It appeared that the cold weather of the morning had kept some of the usual crowd away, which gave the Easter Bunny a little more breathing space than he usually gets.
The firefighter volunteers hid prize eggs in each age-group section among the hordes of “regular” eggs. Prize winners were:
Infant — 2
1. Hunter Spor — Sisters.
2. Stratton Smith — Sisters.
3. Jett Tippet — Redmond.
4. Ashton King — Sisters.
3-5 years
1. Tasman Rheuben — Sisters.
2. Noah Dennis — Sisters.
3. Erin Crawford — Prineville.
4. Ashlyn Simpson — Sisters.
6-8 years
1. Daija Morton — Bend.
2. Ashlee Bloking — Bend.
3. William Barton — Portland.
4. Ria Coffey — Sisters.
9-11 years
1. Joel Kercher — Bend.
2. Lilly Perkins — Sisters.
3. Tessa Roberts — Sisters.
4. Casey Barlesdale — Sisters.
In about an hour, the park emptied as weary but happy hunters returned home to Easter dinner. The skies darkened again and the snow fell, before clearing again to provide a magnificent Sisters Easter sunset.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
Reader Comments(0)