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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 9, 2020)
Holidays in Sisters 2020 Pages 11-14 The Nugget Vol. XLIII No. 50 P OSTAL CUSTOMER News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon www.NuggetNews.com SES forges path with in-person instruction Wednesday, December 9, 2020 Police investigate poaching incident Hitting the slopes... By Charlie Kanzig Correspondent With every other pub- lic school in Deschutes County operating under the Comprehensive Distance Learning (CDL) model due to the coronavirus pandemic, Sisters Elementary School stands alone conducting in-person learning 4 leav- ing Principal Joan Warburg feeling quite fortunate and pleased for her students. <Our students are happy, PRE-SORTED STANDARD ECRWSS U.S. POSTAGE PAID Sisters, OR Permit No. 15 PHOTO BY BILL BARTLETT Hoodoo Ski Area has opened on weekends for eager skiers and snowboarders. See IN-PERSON on page 23 Oregon State Police are investigating a poaching incident that occurred near Sisters earlier this fall. They are seeking public assistance to solve the case. Poachers killed a bull, a cow, and a spike elk east of Sisters on or about October 28 and Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife troopers are looking for information leading to the culprits. The animals were discov- ered separately, but all three were in the same area and See POACHING on page 16 County responding to Finding truth of genetic identity surge in COVID-19 cases By Jim Cornelius Editor in Chief As COVID-19 cases continue to surge in the region and across the state, Deschutes County Health Services reports that case investigation and contact- tracing teams are currently not able to contact all resi- dents who test positive for COVID-19 within 24 hours. Daily case reports hit a record on Friday, December 4, with 129 reported. Sisters cases stood at 92 on December 2, up from 78 a week before (cases are bro- ken out by zip code on a weekly basis). There was a statewide record of 2,176 new confirmed and presump- tive COVID-19 cases and 30 new deaths reported on Friday. Governor Kate Brown marked Friday9s statistics: <Today, Oregon marked a tragic milestone in the COVID-19 pandemic,= she said. <The Oregon Health Authority reported 30 deaths today, a record, and the number pushed us past the 1,000th death since the start of this crisis. This disease has Inside... touched every Oregonian. It has taken a devastating toll on our families, our com- munities, our businesses and our physical and mental wellbeing.= The local area is seeing more COVID cases than at any time previously in the pandemic. Deschutes County9s test- ing percent-positive rate is 11.3 percent, which indi- cates that testing is limited and that most cases may go undetected. Percent-positive rate gives an indication how widespread infection is in an area and whether levels of testing are keeping up with levels of disease transmis- sion. Health officials consider test positivity of five percent or greater <too high.= On Monday, St. Charles Health System reported 49 COVID-19 patients; six in the ICU, with four on a ventilator. COVID-19 metrics have pushed local schools into the <red zone,= which may See COVID-19 on page 22 Wendi Babst was staying at her soon-to-be home in Sisters in March 2018 when she made a discovery that changed her life. Retired from law enforce- ment and now teaching crim- inal justice at Clackamas Community College, Babst and her husband, Greg, were on the cusp of moving per- manently to the Sisters home they had purchased in 2012. Wendi wasn9t feeling well, and was looking to pass some time by delving into a com- mercial DNA test. <I bought a Black Friday gift to myself, and then I didn9t do it for months,= she recalled. When she looked at her results, there was an anom- aly: She had a whole lot of half-sibling matches that shouldn9t be there. It didn9t take her detective9s intuition long to grasp what was going on. <It immediately started to click,= she told The Nugget. She knew that her mother had seen a fertility doctor 4 and she knew that that PHOTO PROVIDED Wendi Babst, right, with her mother, Cathy Holm, got their portrait shot at The Hen’s Tooth in Sisters during a visit. In 2018, Babst made a stunning discovery about her genetic history. Her story is now portrayed in the HBO documentary film “Baby God.” doctor had delivered her; his name was on her birth cer- tificate. And she knew what her DNA test implied. And as she investigated her findings, she realized a shocking truth: Her biological father was Dr. Quincy Fortier. Babst9s remarkable jour- ney is recounted in the new See ‘BABY GOD’ on page 19 Letters/Weather ............... 2 Announcements ................ 8 Holidays in Sisters .......11-14 Crossword .......................19 Sudoku ............................21 Meetings .......................... 3 Events .............................. 8 Student of the Month .......18 Classifieds ................. 20-21 Real Estate ................ 22-24