Jim Anderson: celebrating a life at Sisters Library

Jim Anderson will "show and tell" about his adventurous life at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 22 at the Sisters Library Community Room.

Through the month of May the library will show a photo exhibit of his diverse and amazing life, filled with both human and animal characters that he has known, loved, nurtured and written about over his 82 years.

Jim was born and raised on a small farm in West Haven, Connecticut. For 16 years, he never had cold hands or a cold forehead - thanks to his grandfather teaching him how to milk cows.

He is married, has six children and nine grandchildren that are scattered all over the U.S. Two of his oldest sons are F-16 pilots and have served in Turkey, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

It was on the farm that Jim learned the conservation ethic at the age of 11.

"You eat what you shoot," his grandfather said, as he inspected a great horned owl Jim had shot.

It was also in West Haven that Jim began a long love affair with airplanes and flying. He used a horse-drawn mowing machine to cut the grass on a small airport close by and took his wages in flying time. This experience eventually led him to become an FAA Certified Commercial Pilot and CFIG, a flight instructor in gliders.

He rolled into Bend on his Harley-Davidson in September of 1951, after spending four years in the U.S. Navy serving on sub-chasers. The day after he arrived in Bend he was fighting forest fires, using his Harley for transportation on mountain roads.

In the mid-'50s Jim spent time with Fort Rock horseman, Reub Long, author of "The Oregon Desert" to see if he wanted to be a buckaroo. After pulling calves at 16 degrees below zero, he decided he didn't.

Anderson logged, mined pumice, and studied coyotes - especially the response to poisons (to non-target species, such as raptors) and what effect "control" had on reducing livestock damages. He also became involved with the Oregon State Police, Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW) and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, apprehending miscreants shooting eagles, hawks, and owls. In later years, he contracted studies for ODFW on bats, eagles, hawks, owls, cormorants and osprey.

He worked for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland as a naturalist for several years, implementing outdoor education and scientific activities for families, students and teachers, and operating OMSI's science camps. He was also the director of the Children's Zoo and Conservation and Education in what is now the Oregon Zoo.

Jim has been studying and banding raptors in Central Oregon for over 50 years, specializing in golden eagles, osprey, ferruginous hawks and American kestrel.

He has traveled to Australia, lived with Aborigines in the Northern Territory, and studied spiders in Melbourne. He was the manager of The Nature Conservancy's Ramsey Canyon Preserve in southeast Arizona for three years, has also traveled throughout Arizona and the Northwest conducting a variety of natural history studies, including spiders, condors, hawks, eagles and owls.

He started the nature programs at Sunriver in the early 1970s, working with John Gray and original landscape architect, Bob Royston. In addition, he has conducted elder hostel programs for Central Oregon Community College, Sunriver Nature Center, and Southern Oregon University for several years, and enjoys working with OPB and the crew with Oregon Field Guide in particular.

The program will also include a celebration of the launch of the recently released second edition of the Friends of the Sisters Library (FOSL) "What's Cooking in Sisters" cookbook. Anderson has held the position of President of FOSL for the past three years.