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The Nugget
Vol. XLIII No. 29
P OSTAL CUSTOMER
News and Opinion
from Sisters, Oregon
www.NuggetNews.com
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Sisters, OR
Permit No. 15
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Brightest comet in years soars over Sisters COVID-19
on the rise
in Central
Oregon
By Jim Cornelius
Editor in Chief
PHOTO BY RON THORKILDSON
Photo taken July 11 from Dee Wright Observatory on McKenzie Pass.
By Ron Thorkildson
Correspondent
A celestial visitor that
hasn9t been around these parts
in about 6,800 years is cur-
rently putting on an impres-
sive display in Sisters9 skies.
The cosmic traveler is comet
NEOWISE C/2020 F3, found
on March 27 by the Near-
Earth Object Wide-Field
Infrared Survey Explorer
(NEOWISE) satellite, and
it has turned out to be the
brightest comet in years.
Early last spring astrono-
mers speculated that newly
discovered comets Atlas and
Swan might become easy
naked-eye objects as they
approached the inner solar
system. Unfortunately, nei-
ther of them could take the
heat from the sun and broke
apart. So far, third time seems
to be the charm as NEOWISE
is holding up much better.
After cruising inside the
orbit of Mercury, the comet
made its closest approach to
the sun on Friday, July 3, at
a distance of approximately
27 million miles, when it
became bright enough to see
without optical aid. Although
it is currently receding from
the sun, NEOWISE will pass
Correspondent
The Sisters School Board
voted unanimously to keep
Jay Wilkins as chair and Don
Hedrick as vice-chair for
another year at the monthly
meeting held at Sisters
Middle School Wednesday,
July 8 4 the first <in-person=
meeting conducted since the
pandemic shutdown began in
March.
After recitation of the
Pledge of Allegiance, one
board member quipped.
“That sounded a lot better
than when we did that on
Zoom and we were all speak-
ing at different speeds.=
Inside...
toward the end of the month,
it will still be a fine sight in a
pair of binoculars.
Some of the area9s ama-
teur astronomers have
already captured many strik-
ing images of the comet,
some of which can be viewed
on the Sisters Astronomy
Club9s Facebook page
(https://www.facebook.com/
sistersastronomy/).
While it9s true that
NEOWISE does not measure
up as one of brightest comets
ever to grace our skies, such
as Hale-Bopp did in 1997,
it9s still worthy of a good
look.
By Jodi Schneider
Correspondent
Designated as an organi-
zational meeting, most of the
business of the evening cen-
tered around members agree-
ing to appointments on dif-
ferent committees on which
the board has representation,
as well as approving other
institutional organizational
appointments, though Curt
Scholl did share a superin-
tendent9s report that included
some updates related to
reopening of schools in the
fall.
The board enthusiastically
endorsed Wilkins to take on a
second year at the helm.
David Thorsett said, “It
The road to recovery
kicked off for local businesses
in Sisters when they unlocked
their doors on Friday, May
15, the day Deschutes County
moved into Phase 1 of the
state9s reopening.
On June 6, Deschutes
County was approved to
enter Phase 2 of the State9s
reopening plan for Oregon.
A the pandemic intensified,
Governor Kate Brown has
mandated that Oregonians
are now required to wear face
masks while in all indoor
public spaces and outdoors if
they cannot maintain six feet
of separation.
See SCHOOLS on page 31
See BUSINESSES on page 30
Letters/Weather ........................2
Meetings ...................................3
See COVID-19 on page 8
Local businesses on road to recovery
Wilkins re-elected
as school board chair
By Charlie Kanzig
closest to the earth on July 22,
at which time the two bodies
will be separated by a per-
fectly safe 64 million miles.
Earlier in the month the
comet was located near the
northeastern horizon about
an hour and a half before sun-
rise. But it is slowly tracking
westward across the north-
ern sky and, according to
NASA, will be best viewed
from mid-July on as an eve-
ning object above the north-
western horizon. The big
question is for how long will
NEOWISE remain bright?
Even if the comet does drop
below naked-eye detection
Like much of the rest of
the country, Central Oregon
is in the midst of a surge in
COVID-19 cases. On Sunday,
Deschutes County reported
16 new cases, after reporting
15 new cases the day before.
There were no new cases
reported on Monday.
While the numbers are not
big in comparison to major
surges in other areas, they
nevertheless represent a sig-
nificant increase from the
days when Deschutes County
added a case or two — at
most a handful 4 in a day.
Some of that increase is due
to ramped-up testing and con-
tact tracing, but the surge also
represents growing commu-
nity spread.
St. Charles Health System
reported peaking at 14 hospi-
talizations on April 5, in the
midst of the initial pandemic
shutdown. On Friday morn-
ing, the hospital reported 11
Obituaries ..............................6-7
Announcements .......................10
PHOTO BY JODI SCHNEIDER
Kent and Marla Stevens, owners of Painted Lady Antiques were in the
process of expanding when closures hit. They are feeling pretty good about
the way things have gone since reopening, seeing locals shopping local.
Partners in Real Estate ........ 11-22
Crossword ...............................27
Classifieds ......................... 28-30
Real Estate ......................... 31-32