Sisters Library has a new 'reading tree'

It laid in woodworker Brent McGregor's wonderul treasure trove of wood for over 15 years, a four-foot-thick, six-foot-long piece of 300-year-old ponderosa pine snag. There wasn't anything significant about it; it didn't stand out among the bigger, more intriguing pieces of dead wood stacked all over McGregor's place. There was not even a woodpecker hole for birds to nest in.

Then one day, Paul Bennett, co-chair of the Friends of the Sisters Library (FOSL) Art Committee, had an idea: "How about a reading tree for children to sit in and feel snug and warm while they enjoy their favorite books?"

Somewhere and somehow along the line, the word got to McGregor. The minute he heard about Paul's idea, that old almost forgotten, lonely piece of dead ponderosa pine came alive. "They want me!" it might have shouted.

The FOSL Art Committee paid a visit to McGregor's wood yard, and when they saw the old pine stub and listened to McGregor's description of what he could do with it, Bennett's idea came to life.

Many weeks later - after a lot of painstaking carving, sanding, sealing and TLC - the old tree became the library children's reading room "Reading Tree."

When McGregor and his helper Gavin Smith came through the front door of the library with the artfully done "Reading Tree" on a dolly, it was almost a case of the infamous boat built in the basement. They couldn't get it through the inside doors to the children's reading room. After carefully removing the door center post (and replacing it afterwards), the tree rolled into its new home.

Bennett knew things like this are magnets to children, and 10-year-old Chris Voorhies of Sisters proved it. He was the first to climb inside with his book - even before librarian Peg Bermel had settled on exactly where and how the "Reading Tree" would stand in the children's room.