Local girl graces novel’s cover

Camp Sherman’s own Whitney Hamberger graces the cover of “Oksana,” a novel about the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Camp Sherman resident was approached by a photographer while she was working at Espresso Junction in Sisters. He drove up to the drive-through window and spotted her.

“Photographer Steve Gardner was looking for a darker, Russian looking female to use on the book cover and asked me if I would be willing to do it,” said Hamberger.

“Oksana” was written by Susan Downs and Susan May Warren. The story describes how Tsar Nikolai Romanov entrusts Anton Klassen to take the Tsar’s daughter, Olga Romanov, to safety before being arrested by revolutionaries. Posing as a servant (Oksana), Olga makes it to safety and waits fruitlessly to be reunited with her family. Meanwhile, the real Oksana chooses to remain behind in the palace.

Hamberger will be entering her sophomore year at the University of Oregon where she plans to study languages and major in English.

“I would like to become a writer and hope to become a high school English teacher,” she said.

A former student at Camp Sherman’s Black Butte School, Whitney participated in the National History Day competition while a sixth grader at the school.

“It was exciting to visit the nation’s capital and take part in the competition at the University of Maryland,” she said.

This summer, she is living with her parents, Teresa and Steve Hamberger, at Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery where her father is manager. She is working at the Camp Sherman Store for the summer and you may meet her there waiting on customers or preparing sandwiches for visitors.