Sisters salutes...

• Andrew Gorayeb wrote:

I am writing to let everyone know that SPRD is back, and it is firing on all cylinders. The SALI (Sisters Annual Lacrosse Invitational) is great evidence of that recovery.

Before SPRD, this tournament was pretty good, it was attended and it was somewhat organized, but now, it is nothing short of GREAT!

The people at SPRD, Anne Heath, Ryan Moffat, Melissa Robertson, Cindy Crowder and Keiko McKenzie (if I've left anyone out, I apologize) worked very hard to make this event a winner. The girls basketball team led by Julianne Horner, Melanie Pettersen and other basketball moms as well as volunteers from the football team worked very hard running concessions and the scoring tables at games.

Matt Cyrus generously loaned us golf carts for transportation, even one that worked as a food cart and personal food delivery service for people that ordered food and didn't want to miss a moment of their kid's games. Ryan Moffat set up the tournament bracketing so that it could be displayed on a flat screen instead of using huge sheets of paper that get blown down every few minutes... This was a professionally run tournament and people noticed.

The kids of the Outlaws Lacrosse program are a real point of pride for me. They step up whenever they are asked to. They are Outlaws.

The day before SALI (led by team captains, Randon Beech and Connor Morgan), they walked the entire high school campus and cleaned up every speck of trash, threw away scrap metal and generally made things better. They set up a huge tent (generously rented to us by the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce), lined fields (with the help of parent volunteers like Jim Long, Darren Layne and Bob Glatz). When the tournament was done, they put it all away neatly and then cleaned the high school and middle school campuses one more time.

These kids are students, athletes and community citizens. They understand that it isn't who takes credit or who gets the accolades that really matters, what matters is that the job gets done, that everyone benefits and they can do it all without using drugs... (again, if I missed anyone from the army of people that made this happen, I apologize).

Oh, and lest I forget, Thank you Sisters School District! Without your hard work and cooperation, we couldn't do SALI or lacrosse! So thank you, Jim Golden, Bob Macauley, Mark Stewart, Leland Bliss, Gary Pepperling, Jim Wysong (and his staff) and anyone else that has helped lacrosse become a success in Sisters.

The plan is to keep going... more tournaments, more visitors, more volunteers, more commerce in Sisters and in the end, more life lessons for the kids.

SPRD can and will lead the way. Good for them!

Thank you for all of the hard work, everyone should feel very proud of what can happen when good people get together, set their egos aside and put their backs into something worthwhile.

• On May 11, three SHS students were honored (among 16 students from all over Central Oregon) by The Center Foundation for leadership, community service, academics and sports participation. These high school juniors received $1,500 scholarships: Katie Dumolt; Wyatt Gladden; Chelsea Reifsneider.