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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (April 15, 2020)
2 Wednesday, April 15, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O Editorial… Hats off to Sisters Rodeo The Sisters Rodeo Board of Directors had to make a wrenching decision last week to cancel this year9s event, which would have been the 80th Sisters Rodeo. They made the hard, right call. Everyone involved with Sisters9 many events is fully cognizant of how important they are to the culture and economy of our community. When the Sisters Folk Festival made the deci- sion to cancel the 2017 event due to the smoke impacts of the Milli Fire, the board knew full well the pain the decision would cause. It hurts in a whole lot of ways, and pulling that trigger is a horrible feeling. Staging an event on the scale of the Sisters Rodeo is an immense undertaking 4 and the Rodeo does it all with volunteers. Those vol- unteers can9t get the work done that needs to get done right now, and there9s no way of knowing whether mandated shutdowns will be lifted in time for the event to go forward in any case. And the board had to weigh the respon- sibility of bringing people from all over the country to Sisters in the middle of a pan- demic. Conversely, they had to weigh the financial risk to the organization of laying out expenses and putting up a big purse 4 and then having minimal turnout due to fears of virus transmission. The Sisters Rodeo Board of Directors cowboy9d up and did what they had to do. Hats off to 9em. And let9s all make the com- mitment to make the 2021 Sisters Rodeo the best Biggest Little Show in the World yet. Jim Cornelius Editor in Chief Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is 10 a.m. Monday. To the Editor: My dad once told me, <You can9t wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time.= If the stress of these times has you on edge, helping others is good for everyone. Here9s a thought: In the near future, stimulus checks should be finding their way to you. What I propose is this& If it is at all possible in your budget, use a part of your stimulus check to purchase a gift card from one of our fine Sisters merchants. Even if a business isn9t currently open, the majority of them are checking phones, email, etc., and gift cards are almost always available. The Nugget puts out 7,700 copies. If 5,000 recipients of this paper purchase a $50 gift card from a local merchant, that9s $250,000 pumped into our small businesses who so des- perately need it! Whether it9s a restaurant, art gallery, feed store, sporting goods, grocery, boutique, hard- ware, bookstore, etc. I9m certain you will agree that our small businesses are in large part what make our town so special. We9re all facing hardship at this time, but if at all pos- sible, please consider joining me in supporting our hardworking small businesses in this way! Jennifer McCrystal THE NUGGET OFFICE IS CLOSED TO FOOT TRAFFIC, BUT WE ARE ANSWERING PHONES AND EMAIL ... 541-549-9941 NEWS: Jim Cornelius, editor@nuggetnews.com, 541-390-6973 ADVERTISING: Vicki Curlett, vicki@nuggetnews.com, 541-699-7530 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Monday Sunday Partly Cloudy Sunny Mostly Sunny Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Mostly Cloudy 58/35 57/32 69/39 66/38 65/41 60/40 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Email: editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Easterling Creative Director: Jess Draper Community Marketing Partner: Vicki Curlett Classifieds & Circulation: Lisa May Owner: J. Louis Mullen The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $55; six months (or less), $30. First-class postage: one year, $95; six months, $65. Published Weekly. ©2020 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is pro- hibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper9s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. N Not a high water mark for the Navy By Jim Horsley Guest Columnist On April 2, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly relieved Capt. Brett Crozier of command of the nuclear carrier USS Roosevelt for sending his request for assistance over non-secure email to a <broad array of people= rather than up the chain of command. He stated that Crozier <allowed the complexity of the chal- lenge of the COVID break- out on the ship (which started nine days earlier) to overwhelm his ability to act professionally.= The crew cheered Capt. Crozier when he departed the ship in Guam. Modley then flew to Guam after the firing, and directly addressed the ship9s crew, categorizing Capt. Crozier as <too naïve or too stu- pid 4 or perhaps even deliberately insubordi- nate= 4 over his handling of the ship9s coronavirus outbreak. I think Capt. Crozier, in transmitting a per- sonal message, did what he needed to do to shake things loose related to what was occurring on his ship, and I think the Navy did what it had to do in its <Chain of Command= rep- rimand. I do feel the Navy was tone deaf in how they handled it. I felt Modley should also be relieved. (PostScript 4 Modley was pressured to resign). Prior to my Blue Angel tour, and follow- ing Vietnam combat and instructor tours as a naval aviator in the early 1970s, I was an Admiral9s Aide to Commander Carrier Group 3. We were based out of Alameda Naval Air Station, but spent most of our time embarked on the USS Midway, Enterprise, Coral Sea, and Constellation dur- ing my two-year tour. It is likely that Capt. Crozier would have been in face to face contact with his ComCarGroup 9 Admiral (Baker) who likely would have been deployed on the carrier with his staff. Operational status reports would have been sent to the Pacific Fleet Commander in San Diego multiple times per day depending on the level of activity, so certainly there would have been no surprises that COVID-19 was an immedi- ate threat to the crew. Where was the clear guidance from those in overall command when all we were seeing on the news since late January were virus-infected cruise ships? Every response to potential Navy conflict at sea is studied and planned; why didn9t Crozier9s chain of command provide con- tingency orders in February in case of an outbreak? Concurrently, Crozier must have felt enormous pres- sure in trying to maintain his operational mission requirements while watch- ing his crew get decimated by the virus. Another article stated, <Hours after a leaked let- ter from the Commanding Officer of the embattled carrier Theodore Roosevelt pleading for more sup- port from the Navy leaked to the public, the head of U.S. Pacific Fleet (North Island) told reporters he is working as fast as he can to get a plan in place to rotate sailors off the ship.= Sure seems like he and his staff, as well as his superi- ors should have been doing this weeks earlier. Crozier9s letter, unau- thorized as it was, cer- tainly rang the alarm for anyone that would listen. After a highly successful and decorated Navy career, he certainly wasn9t pan- icked or clueless as Modley accused. The fact that it was transmitted was coun- ter to what RADM Baker of ComCarGru 9 would have done according to an arti- cle in the public domain, which is an absolute no-no in terms of Chain of Command. But at that point, Capt. Crozier must have kissed off his career and sent it anyway. Not a high water mark for the Navy, which I still hold in the highest regard. I could not have had bet- ter experiences with lead- ers during my time in the service. Maybe that was before the politicizing of the Navy took hold. The crew cheered for Capt. Crozier when he departed and they cheered when Modley got the boot. On reflection maybe Captain Crozier ought to become the Acting Secretary of the Navy during this pandemic! Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.