Success in Sisters

It has been said that success is doing what you want to do, doing it the best you can, and getting paid for it. In that light, just about any place you stop in Sisters you'll find people who are a "Success."

Sisters Bakery is a wonderful example. Melissa Ward is the owner, and anyone who knows her knows she fits the profile of success perfectly. She's always ready with a big smile and something to say that is positive and helpful. That goes right through to her business and employees as well; they all probably got that spirit of success from Melissa's mom, Elayne, who sold more Friends of the Sisters Library cookbooks than anyone - and enjoyed every minute of it.

Jeremy Bates and Mary Henry co-manage the bakery. Jeremy takes care of the bakery end; Mary sees that everything is going smoothly up front.

Jeremy has been doing what he does for over eight years. He can knead a 50-pound wad of sourdough bread as gently as if it were a baby in diapers, while at the same time watching the rolls baking in the oven, making an egg custard quiche, or the cinnamon bread he makes daily. If you ask him if he enjoys what he's doing - especially if it's Saturday and he has a beautiful opera blaring over the speakers behind his work bench - he'll just grin and go back to work.

Mary is not only a big smile and a bright light behind the display cases filled with donuts and all other kinds of baked goodies, she also knows a lot about NASCAR, and she makes sure she doesn't miss the big race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway each spring.

If you ask her if she enjoys what she does, either at the bakery or the speedway, she'll also give you a big grin - even though she has to rise-and-shine at 3 a.m. to open the bakery and get things going on the day she's on duty.

And it doesn't stop there... There's Whitney Hewitt - OSU graduate in animal sciences and part-time vet's helper at Broken Top Veterinarian Clinic - who is a pie-maker par excellence, and makes them 10 at a time. Watching her work is very much like watching a ballet. She doesn't waste a movement; her pie-makin's are all lined up and she moves pie dough around with the flourish of a ballerina. She did a fast count in her head one day and came to the conclusion that she's made over 4,000 pies at the bakery.

Mercedes Burns serves customers with a smile-you-can-see-a-mile, and she's finishing her work at a beauty college. Jessica Tulliam works with Mary and Mercedes serving up the tasty products generated by Jeremy, Whitney and others, while in her spare time taking courses at COCC in alternative medicine.

Bonnie Washburn is a baker, who also helps hold down the fort up front, and when she's not doing one or the other, she's throwing pots in her studio in Redmond. Jynx Frederick also helps out in sales, and is preparing to be a full-time student in the fall. And Will Saunders, a Sisters High School student, is also into sales.

Marin Allen, another SHS student, is in sales as well, and in her spare time you can find her either playing soccer, basketball or climbing at Smith Rock State Park with another bakery-worker, Michael Williams.

Jorge Garcia (and several of his family members) are part of the night-time crew who make donuts and Hispanic breads. Jorge makes the special holiday treat, the Three Kings Bread, baked with a tiny clay baby inside. It is said that the person who gets the baby in a piece of bread will have great blessings in the year to come. You don't have to ask him if he enjoys what he does: the donuts and bread speak for themselves.

Tom Parks helps to keep the financial end of the bakery in order, but no matter what person you talk to in Sisters Bakery, they are all a success at what they do.