Sisters celebrates Western heritage

Sisters put the spurs to its Western image and heritage last Saturday.

A Ranch Life and Rodeo Celebration centered around Sisters Art Works, while the Sisters Village Association sponsored the Sisters Western Heritage Celebration with activities around Sisters.

There were hardy-looking men and women and nostalgic scenes of the West captured on canvas and in photographs. Singers sang about cowboy life and love. Displays of leather art, handmade hats, vintage and modern Western clothing and jewelry filled the meeting room at the Sisters Art Works building.

A bright red stagecoach bearing the logo of the Oregon Trail Stage Line offered up rides between Main and Adams avenues, recreating some of the atmosphere of early public transport. The coach was pulled by a team of black Clydesdales from Sisters View Clydesdales.

Alison Mansfield, seven, said, "It was kind of bumpy, but I liked the clip-clop of the horse's feet."

Western art was the theme at the Sisters Art Works building, and a good crowd came to watch J. Chester "Skip" Armstrong find something artistic in a lump of wood. Armstrong uses chainsaws in the early stages of creating his art, and sure enough, a couple of bears emerged from the wood.

Gayle Bonine came from La Pine to watch Armstrong. "Plus I want a stagecoach ride," she added.

Bronco Billy's was the place to be in the afternoon, where Jessica Yankeytaught line dancing and clogging.

Music and poetry filled the Sisters Art Works building in the evening. Noted Central Oregon author, poet and cowboy historian, Rick Steber, opened the entertainment with a piece called "Buckaroo." Genuine cowboy music from John Grant and the Western Revue, Big Pine and the Pitchtones and Sisters' own Anvil Blasters followed.

Proving that the ranch lifestyle cuts across cultures, Australian Don Worthing shared some of Banjo Paterson's words.

Most famous for the epic "The Man From Snowy River," Patterson captured the life and heart of drovers and swaggies, the equivalent of cowboys and drifters.

A group of Hungry Realtors of Sisters judged a Beef Special Competition involving most of the restaurants of the Sisters Country.

Coyote Creek Café won Grand Champion honors, followed by Suttle Lake and Brand 33 in second and third place.