The nugget., March 15, 2017, Page 23, Image 23

Wednesday, March 15, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
MILLER: USFS still
plans to sell HQ
property in Sisters
Continued from page 1
and context.
“The community of Sisters
is very demanding because
it cares a lot,” she said. “And
that’s a really good place to
be.”
The passion for the sur-
rounding forest and for the
community is also reflected
in the quality of personnel
she has worked with on the
District, Miller reflected. She
noted that she has worked in
districts where she might get
two or three applications for
an open position. In Sisters,
she typically gets 20 to 30.
The competition to come to
the Sisters Ranger district is
fierce, and that results in top-
quality personnel and a strong
culture.
“The people in the office
are great,” she said. “High-
quality people who are really
smart and really care about
each other.”
Miller started her career on
the Bear Springs District on
the Mt. Hood National Forest
— unofficially — in 1975,
the year she graduated from
high school. She was hired as
a work/study intern, counting
trees in clear cuts.
Raised in Maupin, Miller
“played on the forest all the
time growing up.” The philos-
ophy of multiple use resonated
with her and a career with the
U.S. Forest Service seemed a
natural fit. Her start at Bear
Springs affirmed that.
“Bear Springs was a spe-
cial place — just like Sisters
is,” she said. “They were good
bookends for me.”
Miller and her husband
Richard — whom she met
while studying forest man-
agement at Oregon State
University — plan to stay in
Sisters and enjoy the forest as
users rather than managers.
They look forward to having
time for summer recreation for
the first time in decades. And
some travel in the U.S. is also
in the plans.
She leaves the Sisters
District facing several impor-
tant issues. Fire always looms
large, and she believes that
Fire Management Officer
James Osborne has that critical
factor well in hand, with lots of
support from other agencies.
The question of trails —
particularly a paved trail —
remains to be hashed out.
Miller would like to see a deep
and through community dis-
cussion around the topic.
“I don’t know what that
discussion is going to look
like,” she said. “I don’t know
where that is going to land.”
Miller wishes she could
have seen through the pro-
posed sale of the current Forest
Service headquarters property
along Pine Street and the con-
struction of a new headquar-
ters facility, but she recognized
Enjoy the
fl avors
of spring
that that process is likely to
take years to complete.
The community of
Sisters is very demanding
because it cares a lot.
And that’s a really
good place to be.
— Kristie Miller
Looming closer on the hori-
zon is the potential impacts
from a massive influx of peo-
ple to the region to view a total
solar eclipse on August 21.
Central Oregon is one of the
best places to experience the
phenomenon, and Miller and
23
other officials expect tens of
thousands of people to descend
upon the region.
“It’s going to be a game-
changer for everyone,” she
said.
There’s essentially no way
to manage potential impacts
like that of 500 people ascend-
ing Mt. Jefferson and the like.
She told The Nugget that her
advice for managers is to pre-
pare “to manage the mess.”
Who will be in charge in
August remains to be seen.
No interim or permanent
Ranger has yet been tapped for
Miller’s position. Given that
it is Sisters, there will likely
be plenty of candidates eager
to take on a challenging yet
satisfying job — the one with
which Miller closed out a long
and satisfying career.
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