Letters to the Editor: 02/07/2007

To the Editor:

In response to Bill Rexford (Letters to the Editor, The Nugget, January 31):

Please see the front-page news article of January 30 in the Bend Bulletin. It seems that the Dean of the University of Oregon School of Journalism and the Oregon Department of Justice agree with this person you call a cultural vandal.

To be honest with you, I have no idea what a cultural vandal is, nor do I care to debate with a social studies teacher the rights and duties of the public to participate and provide oversight in a democracy. You should have better communication skills and be familiar with democratic processes before stepping into a classroom as a social studies teacher.

Mr. Corrigan is a grown man educated at one of the best and most prestigious schools in this country. I don't have nearly enough power to force him or anyone else to do anything that they don't choose to do. Mr. Corrigan, like Mr. Thonstad, is exclusively responsible for his decision to resign. Why aren't you attacking the board members who may have influenced Mr. Thonstad's decision to resign?

The homeschooling mess may have been avoided had there been someone like this cultural vandal providing SSD oversight in 1999. People, like you, who resort to name-calling and refuse to debate the substance of the public disclosure issue, directly damage the community, your profession, this school district and your students.

Mike Morgan

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To the Editor:

In response to Michele Morseth (Letters to the Editor, The Nugget, January 31):

This country was founded in a bloody revolutionary war. If the British had won that war, you wouldn't have the freedom you possess today. We have had to defend that freedom with our blood on many occasions. That is the nature of the human condition. People will always be willing to lay their life on the line so you can express your misguided emotion-based views of the world.

Unfortunately, there will always be bad guys. Perhaps you should give some consideration to the human rights of the people who died on 9/11. There are people who have a deep hatred for us because we practice the wrong religion.

We are simply defending our right to live as we see fit; the right of any human being. Remember that we liberated Iraq from an extremely demented, hateful individual who murdered thousands of his own people.

I have a son who served two terms in Iraq. He did this because he believes in freedom and his country. I would never demean his service as anything less than totally honorable.

This country was based on capitalism, so a person could improve their life based on their own efforts. These corporations that you hate provide you with everything you need to give you a lifestyle most countries can only dream of. Perhaps you should move to Europe and live in a decaying Socialist climate, or maybe Cuba.

You may not be against this country, but from where I sit it looks that way. You have the right to your own particular form of "pursuit of happiness," but understand that there is a large segment of the population, myself included, that sees your position as threatening to the very foundation of this country. This is not a popularity contest. People have the United States in their gun sights and appeasement of these individuals is seen, by them, as weakness. Ask Neville Chamberlain. His misjudgment of Hitler only cost 50 million lives.

Terry Burke

s s s

To the Editor:

I would like to express gratitude to the many teachers and support staff of Sisters School District for their dedication and loyalty to their students.

What is exceptional about this district is its teachers. Many of them inspire, develop and maintain caring relationships with students and their families even when the students are no longer in their class.

It is disheartening to have turmoil in leadership as well as financial challenges attributed to errors, compounded by enrollment growth. However, we can celebrate that our students have been insulated from the bulk of the "politics" because of the continuity and caring of such high quality teachers.

What is most important is the way our teachers ensure that their students feel supported, respected, safe, accepted, engaged, challenged, creative, cared for and inspired.

For the future, I hope for a fabulous superintendent, a cohesive school board, no financial deficits, an additional elementary school, small class sizes yet with a wide variety of class offerings, and I might as well add, Spanish instruction at least in the middle school years if not earlier. But for the present, I hope our teachers and support staff know how valuable and valued they are.

Jill Barrett

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To the Editor:

I am an educational consultant who specializes in writing and wish to express my support for the newly proposed Sisters Charter School.

It is my understanding, after several conversations with Michele Williams, the project coordinator, that the proposed school will have at its core an emphasis on the arts, with curriculum connected in innovative ways to drama, painting, writing, sculpting, music, dance, and other forms of creative human expression. In this school, art would provide a means of reflecting the finest every culture produces. What more important goal can education have?

When one thinks of art thriving in Oregon, two communities come instantly to mind: Ashland (with its wonderful Shakespeare Festival) and Sisters.

Anyone who has visited Sisters can immediately sense that in our community, art is more than an offering; it defines who we are. It is our heart. The work of our local artists graces our walls, doorways, and our green areas. We celebrate the music of people to whom music is not just a living but a way of life. Photographers and painters travel from everywhere to make the special look of Central Oregon part of their portfolios.

How fitting that this community should offer children a means to embrace the artistic excellence we honor at every turn.

For some time now, we in education have said that we should not erect walls between one curriculum and another. Yet, it always seems so hard to make this vision a reality. In school, given pressures of time and space, it is easy for us to create artificial borders. Outside the school walls, though, math translates into architecture - or dance. Biological research finds expression in a picture book. Physics is captured in the painting of a rainbow.

In a National Geographic video we look down through a helicopter's camera lens to see our last few polar bears struggle to survive in a changing world, and we recognize how fragile the earth really is. Technology puts an Arctic ice floe within our visual grasp. But it is the art of that presentation that makes us care.

Many people believe travel is the best form of education. What touches us most on any journey? Art. We come back humming the music, reciting the poetry, pointing to the sculpture in a photograph. How wonderful it would be if children felt that kind of excitement after each day at school.

Art spans boundaries - of time, religion, culture, and geography. There is no better way to extend a welcome to children of diverse backgrounds than to offer them an educational experience that begins with the foundation common to us all and celebrates what every culture holds most sacred.

I believe this to be a visionary path. I hope it is one that will begin right here in Sisters.

Vicki Spandel

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To the Editor:

About the intersection of Barclay Ave. and Highway 20: We know how long it could take to get a traffic light in Sisters. In the meantime, why don't we change the speed limit to 35 mph from Road 100 to the 20 mph zone going both directions?

Tim Shuler

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To the Editor:

The Girl Scout cookie pre-order sale recently ended and a sad thing happened. In three separate instances different teen members approached an adult to ask if they wanted to order cookies, the teen was told "You're too old. I will only buy from a little girl scout."

This happened to both a middle school teen and a high school teen. Both girls were crushed by the different adults' comments. We have a strong sense of community in Sisters, and we care about our children. But these girls met with resistance that they weren't prepared for.

Rather than being lauded for their initiative, entrepreneurial skill and character, they were put down and rejected.

Girl Scouts is one way girls develop skills to prepare them for the adult world, just like Boy Scouts. It gives them things to do with peers in a positive environment and an opportunity for community service activities which improve Sisters, all under strong female leadership.

Teen girls, especially, need to be encouraged to meet the world with confidence and independence. So, please, people of Sisters, when the teen girls are selling cookies next month in front of Rays and they aren't with cute little Brownies with cheery smiles, know that your support is making a difference in their lives as the grow into fine young women - even if they are wearing black clothes and forget to smile.

Evelyn Brush

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To the Editor:

Shortly after we moved to Sisters in 1989 some local interests in our Indian Ford Ranch wanted to buy Sage Meadow and install a nine-hole golf course. I raised some questions in the paper about the 600 gallons of water per minute per acre required for any golf course. A week later the then head of our water system showed up at our home and castigated me verbally for "sticking my nose into our water affairs," saying that we had "more water than we knew what to do with!"

About three weeks later, more or less, one of our pumps ran into sand and we had to drill 60 or 90 feet to restore clean water! One week later the water boss was back to apologize, saying that he didn't believe it would ever happen.

This past summer our water system drilled still another well - this time to protect our water rights. Purity tests are done regularly, which is vital. I don't think our water even requires chlorine at this point, thanks to dedicated members of our water system!

In 1989 the total population of Sisters, Indian Ford Ranch, Tollgate, Crossroads and environs consisted of about 3,500-4,000 people. It is somewhere near 10,000 at present and growing by 400-home developments at a time!

Last week's snow report stated that we are barely at normal snowfall and it is 17 percent below normal water content. Keep in mind that we are high desert, with 10-12 inches per year annual rainfall, most of which falls as snow, which must furnish all of our water as our officials continue to allow development in the hundreds of units for increased tax base and local business, all tapping into that fragile resource. Someday some of us will run out of water or will encounter pollution or both.

Homes in the hundreds consume vastly more water than the irrigation of the fast disappearing ranches in Central Oregon. Developers will poo-poo this as did our watermaster, until it happens!

I think it is time for our elected officials to address this issue - the basics of survival - before it comes to that point.

Russell B. Williams