Sisters actors film
comedy sketches page 10
Your Store marks 30
years in Sisters page 11
Sisters celebrates
the fiber arts page 33
The Nugget
Vol. XL No. 27
P OSTAL CUSTOMER
News and Opinion
from Sisters, Oregon
www.NuggetNews.com
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Volunteers make quilt show come alive
By Jim Cornelius
News Editor
It seems like magic —
more than a thousand quilts
suddenly appearing on the
buildings of downtown
Sisters in an explosion of
creativity and color on the
second Saturday of July.
And it is a kind of magic
— but it involves a whole
lot more than the waving
of a wand. It’s the coming
together of hundreds of vol-
unteers, hundreds of quilters
and a whole lot of organiza-
tion and effort.
Last week the Sisters
Outdoor Quilt Show (SOQS)
event office — located this
year at Earthwood Homes
in the Sisters Industrial Park
— was stacked high with
a portion of what will be a
record 1,497 quilts, which a
cadre of volunteers will hang
early on the morning of July
8.
Volunteers must sort, cata-
logue and assign a space for
PHOTO BY JIM CORNELIUS
Virginia Bradley has hung her quilts in every Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show since 1976.
each quilt. That process used
to be conducted entirely with
paper and pencil, but now
is made considerably less
Blaze damages home
east of Sisters
Cloverdale Rural Fire
Protection District crews,
joined by Sisters-Camp
Sherman Fire District, were
dispatched to a structure fire
on Cascade Estates Drive
off Highway 20, on Tuesday,
June 27, just before 5 p.m.
Cloverdale crews arrived
to find a fire burning on the
second-floor exterior of the
2,200-square-foot house
and extending into the attic,
fanned by strong winds.
A neighbor who reported
hearing an explosion noticed
the fire, called 911 and tried
to put out the fire with a
garden hose, but it was too
far involved by that time to
extinguish it.
The rental home was
occupied by several people,
who had just left a short time
Inside...
earlier.
Mutual-aid support was
sought from the Crooked
River Ranch and Bend
fire departments to relieve
fatigued crews, as the fire-
fighting and mop-up had fire-
fighters on scene for close to
four hours.
Five engines, three
water tenders and two brush
trucks were called out while
the Oregon Department of
Forestry checked the area for
any embers that could have
sparked a wildfire. Crews
were successful in preventing
the spread into the adjacent
brush.
Fire Chief Thad Olsen
estimated damage to the
home at more than $80.000,
See BLAZE on page 18
arduous by use of a comput-
erized bar code system devel-
oped by former executive
director Ann Richardson and
PRE-SORTED STANDARD
ECRWSS
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
Sisters, OR
Permit No. 15
computer expert Gary Miller.
“It’s so elegant,” SOQS
See SHOW on page 30
Firefighters
mop-up
season’s
first fire
Firefighters finished burn-
out operations and began
mop-up, extinguishing hot
spots and fire along the perim-
eter of the Sheep Springs Fire
in the Metolius Basin north-
west of Sisters, last Friday.
The lightning-sparked fire
started on June 27.
Crews were able to suc-
cessfully complete burnout
operations using existing
roads to create a containment
perimeter. Interior areas will
continue to burn, producing
smoke in the area.
Fire officials managed the
Sheep Springs Fire for full
suppression using existing
roads to create containment
See FIRE on page 35
USFS may limit wilderness access
Outdoor enthusiasts are
loving portions of Sisters
Country to death. The U.S.
Forest Service is proposing
a program to limit access to
wilderness areas in order to
preserve the wilderness expe-
rience in the face of tremen-
dous growth in use.
Under the proposal, visi-
tors to the Mount Jefferson,
Mount Washington, Three
Sisters, Waldo Lake and
Diamond Peak wilderness
areas would need to get a
permit in advance. Such
programs are common in
California to limit crowds
and the environmental dam-
age that comes with them.
Backpackers spending the
night would need a permit.
Day-hikers would need a
permit on a number of popu-
lar trails in Sisters Country,
including Pole Creek,
Chush Falls, Park Meadow,
PHOTO BY JIM CORNELIUS
Tam McArthur Rim would be one of the trails requiring a permit under a
Forest Service proposal to control use.
T h r e e C r e e k M e a d o w,
Tam McArthur Rim, Tam
McArthur Rim Horse Trail,
Broken Top and Black Crater.
In examining use trends,
the Forest Service concluded
that “overall visitor-use
trends across the project area
has increased tremendously
See USFS on page 29
Letters/Weather ................ 2 Sisters Naturalist ............... 8 Movies & Entertainment ....13 Classifieds .................. 27-29 Real Estate .................32-40
Meetings ........................... 3 Announcements ................12 Crossword ....................... 26 Bunkhouse Chronicle ....... 32 Paw Prints ....................... 36