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INSIDE » Book chronicles 92-year-old
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redmondspokesman.com
REDMOND AIRPORT
Summer travel beginning to heat up
BY SUZANNE ROIG
CO Media Group
Be prepared Central Oregon: De-
spite rising airline tickets and fuel
prices, this summer could bring an av-
alanche of visitors.
On Friday, an average of 2,000 pas-
sengers went through the three Trans-
portation Security Administration
screening stations at Redmond Air-
port. The number of passengers was
500 more than the normal, said Lori
Dankers, TSA spokeswoman.
“We’re expecting the number of
flights to be down by about 3% from
last summer,” said Zach Bass, Red-
mond Airport director. “But the
number of seats are up 5%. Some
markets that fly here are using larger
planes.”
The net gain is a win for Redmond
and Central Oregon, which derives its
strong economy from tourism-based
businesses. Summer is a strong season
for Central Oregon. And while most
visitors come by car, within an eight-
hour driving window, many also fly,
Bass said.
“With air service, they track tour-
ism and in-migration, people mov-
ing here,” Bass said Tuesday. “We are
about even with pre-pandemic travel
numbers from the same time frame in
2019.”
In the months of July through Sep-
tember, Bend hotels and vacation rent-
als averaged an 80% occupancy rate
prior to the pandemic, according to
Visit Bend statistics.
There are still no nonstop flights
from Redmond to Portland, Bass said.
Alaska Airlines dropped that route in
November.
See Travel / A4
@RedmondSpox
Former
death row
inmate
sentenced
in bar
stabbing
BY GARRETT ANDREWS
CO Media Group
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Kristina Sinohach looks over a message about a potential job on her phone while talking about the next day’s plans with Connor Steeves and her sister Ira
Sinohach.
FINDING SAFETY
Ukrainian sisters recount journey to Redmond
BY JOE SIESS • CO Media Group
I
ra and Kristina Sinohach, two sisters from Chernivtsi, Ukraine, left their home after the start of Putin’s war, embarking
on a journey through multiple countries before crossing into the United States via Mexico on foot, and safely arriving in
Redmond.
The two sisters are thankful to have made
it all the way to Central Oregon, and said
their parents, who remain in Ukraine, are
also relieved. After such a long journey, the
sisters can finally catch their breath while
they are hosted by the family of a new friend
they met in southwestern Ukraine soon after
the war began.
While volunteering for the We’re Near
team, a humanitarian organization that as-
sists refugees, the sisters met 23-year-old
Connor Steeves, who had been in the coun-
try since the beginning of January, teaching
at the Borys Hrinchenko Kyiv University. Af-
ter first leaving the country at the start of the
war, he decided to return to volunteer, and
that is when he met Kristina and Ira.
Not long after meeting, Ira and Steeves be-
gan dating and are now engaged. But staying
in Ukraine was not safe, so the three of them
decided to leave in April and travel to Red-
mond, where Steeves’ parents live.
Neither of the young women can imagine
returning to Ukraine any time soon.
“Only one good thing, all people all
“Our parents are happy we are in
a safe place. They miss us, but they
are glad we are here.”
— Kristina Sinohach,
Ukrainian refugee
around the world know now what Ukraine is
and where it is,” Ira said.
The day the Russian invasion began,
Ira, 22 was sleeping in her home when her
mother loudly and abruptly opened the door.
“The war has started!” she told her daughter.
“I started crying, because it was a super
bad surprise,” Ira recently recalled. “Hon-
estly for me, it was a big, bad surprise. I didn’t
know about it, and I didn’t think about it.”
Her sister, Kristina, 20, heard about the
start of the war while texting with coworkers.
“It was maybe 6 a.m. and I wake up, be-
cause my phone has a lot of notifications,”
Kristina said. “Everyone texted, ‘the war has
started.’ At first I didn’t believe…I was so
calm.”
A Washington man who
served time on Oregon’s
death row will go back to
prison for 17½ years for
stabbing three people out-
side a Redmond bar in
2021.
Gregory Paul Wilson,
55, won’t be eligible for
early release, the judge told
him at sentencing Mon-
day morning in Deschutes
County Circuit Court.
Last month, following a
two-week trial at the court
facility at the Deschutes
County Fair & Expo Center
in Redmond, a jury con-
victed Wilson of all counts:
three charges of second-de-
gree assault and three of
unlawful use of a weapon.
Early on the morning of
July 23, police were called
to a report of a stabbing
outside the Tumble Inn
Tavern on SW Sixth Street.
At the time, Wilson was
staying in Central Oregon
with a woman here to at-
tend a medical conference.
The facts of the case are
hazy to this day, as nearly
everyone involved was
intoxicated at the time.
But central to the case is
a physical altercation that
took place between Wilson
and a trio of bar patrons
— Clint Holdbrook, Kyle
Bates and Seth Gannon —
during which Wilson pro-
duced a pocket knife and
stabbed each of the men.
Wilson was arrested
and charged with three
counts of second-degree
assault, a Measure 11 of-
fense in Oregon and pun-
ishable by a mandatory
minimum sentence of 70
months in prison. Since he
was charged once for each
victim, he was looking at
three 70-month sentences,
but it was up to Judge
Randy Miller whether
those prison terms would
run consecutively (back-to-
back) or concurrently (all
at once).
See Wilson / A4
The Spokesman uses
recycled newsprint
INDEX
Calendar ........A2
Puzzles ...........A2
Flashback ......A5
Classifieds .....A5
Volume 112, No. 42
USPS 778-040
See Ukraine / A4
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