Pete Buffington reports that his Abiqua Wind Vineyard’s 2007 Mueller Thurgau recently won a double gold medal in an international competition in San Francisco. Their 2006 Early Muscat also won a double gold at last year’s event, proving that there is quite an emerging wine region on the east side of I-5. The Man says to quit yer “wining” and […]
By Matt Day Almost every day, Andrew James “AJ” Hanlon would buy a cup of lemon chamomile tea at the Silver Creek Coffee House in downtown Silverton, a popular spot for teens and twenty-somethings. Frequently, Hanlon would linger for the conversation. Hanlon, an Irish citizen, arrived in Oregon in June 2007 planning to spend a few months living in Silverton […]
We hope this will complement the work we already do in print and provide a forum for feedback and interaction.
All of the stories that are delivered to your mailbox in the print edition were posted online at noon today. Some are missing photos, others have some glitches here and there. We hope to have that worked out soon. Features like Datebook and Marketplace are also empty right now. Forgive the delay, we’ll get those up and running as soon as possible.
In the meantime, take a look around the site. Let us know what works and what doesn’t, and what you’d like to see in Our Town online.
Read More…
By Linda Whitmore
Owners of old houses often wonder about the lives of the people who tread the stairs before them. Passers-by might be curious about how current residents live in a vintage home.
On Saturday, July 19, Silverton Country Historical Society’s “Within These Walls” home tour offers a peek into the parlors and porches of homes and businesses built before 1940 – and a couple of well-done recreations of vintage houses.
Read More…
By Matt Day While taking a creative writing class in college in the early 1970s, Don Dunn wrote a short story. Part sci-fi, part historical fiction, the tale centered on a man coming of age in trying times. Dunn went on to graduate from Mt. Angel College in 1971 with a degree in humanities. The story wound up in the […]
By Linda Whitmore The Oregon Garden, which celebrated its seventh anniversary June 29, is blooming like an established landscape. Now solidly rooted, Silverton’s botanical garden is flourishing. Not only have the individual garden spots been expanded and plants within them matured, the Garden is on sound financial footing, allowing for further growth and development. There has been a bloom of […]
By Matt Day
In her 10th year of work with Silverton Youth Peer Court, Cynthia Schaeffer is noticing a trend she’s never seen before.
Theft is up from last year. Between January and May of 2008, 33 percent of peer court cases were theft-related, up 10 percent from the same period in 2007. But theft fluctuates year to year, and she isn’t worried about the jump in cases.
Read More…
By Dixon Bledsoe
So how exactly does a construction manager end up owning a beautiful restaurant on Silver Creek in historic Silverton?
Manny Rodrigues paints a great story. The North Salem High graduate lives in Beaverton, spent eight years in Hawaii and is a construction lead for Mo Salem, owner of Westside Drywall. Locals see the company’s handiwork all over town, most notably the restoration of the Wolf Building, the extreme makeover of the former Silver Falls Realty Building (corner of Main and Water), Silverton Coffee Station buildings and the Hartman Building.
Read More…
By Kathy Cook Hunter
Celebrating Independence Day, is an American tradition, and for many folks that means picnics, parades, concerts and, in the case of Silverton and Mt. Angel, two evenings of fireworks. The towns observe in the spirit of neighborly closeness and fun with a succession of events.
Read More…
By Kristine Thomas
A visit to Silver Falls State Park is like traveling back in time for Louie Hubbard of Salem. The Douglas fir, hemlock and cedar trees may be taller and rounder, but each season the temperate rainforest redecorates itself with brown, red and gold for the fall and brilliant shades of green for the summer. The waterfalls continue their cycle from a trickle in late summer to an awe-inspiring crashing force in winter.
The park still has the same ambiance and majestic beauty it did when he first visited it in the 1970s, Hubbard said.
“I think what’s wonderful about the park is that every time you come back, it is still the same,” he said. “In this day and age, there aren’t many things like that. The park has been well cared for, for many generations to enjoy.”
Read More…
By Mary Owen Parishioners at St. Paul Catholic Church in Silverton are looking forward to a year of celebration for their patron saint and martyr, the Apostle Paul. “We are hoping to have some fun things, like a play, a talent show and some dinners.” -Fr. William Hammelman Hailed by many as the most influential teacher in Christianity’s history, Paul […]
By Mary Owen Mentoring families and pioneering lay spirituality were a few of his passions, but perhaps his most intense was guiding youth. Father Bernard Sanders, a well-loved Benedictine monk at Mt. Angel Abbey, died June 3. More than 400 people came to pay respects at his funeral on June 10. Those who mourned the 89-year-old priest, ordained in 1944, […]
By Carl Sampson When Al Gore invented the Internet, he undoubtedly had a vision of an information highway that would wend its way around the world, placing all sorts of important and enlightening information at our fingertips. Instead, the Internet is destroying civilization as we know it. I shall explain. Instead of broadening the flow of information to the average […]
June 14th was the Spaghetti Dinner / Auction Fundraiser for Randy Geck. Randy was there to enjoy all the friends, family and community who came together to celebrate and honor him with their love and support.
The fundraiser was a huge success, not just because of the people who donated their time, energy and skills, but the generosity was amazing. There were donations of food for the complete spaghetti dinner. St Paul Church donated their space and spectacular kitchen. There were wonderful auction items that brought in a lot of cash for the fund.
Read More…
With gas prices on a seemingly endless climb, Chemeketa Community College officials are reminding area residents that learning opportunities are closer than they might think.
“At the Chemeketa Santiam Center, we have a wide assortment of classes offered on site and a computer lab to connect to any Chemeketa online course,” said Anita Beyer, a specialist at the Santiam Center in Sublimity.
Read More…
By Jan Jackson The luxury of walking outside the door and plucking something fresh and vine ripened is not just a treat for the palette but the pocket book. All you need is a little space in which to tuck a tomato or cucumber plant, a container that would grow a lettuce bowl or a space to build a little […]
By Jan Jackson Slow to ripen but sweet and juicy as ever, Oregon strawberries are the best and the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Strawberry Commission have stepped up efforts to market them to processors and fresh market consumers. Strawberries have been in the Willamette Valley since 1846 when Henderson Luelling loaded up two extra wagonloads of fruit […]
By Mary Owen
With gas topping $4 a gallon, the area bus system known as CARTS is greeting new riders.
“We have been picking up regularly,” said Frank Brown, interim road supervisor for Chemeketa Area Regional Transportation System.
Read More…
By Kristine Thomas Marilyn Brenden knows gas prices are soaring higher than ever. She has watched the cost of basic food supplies such as bread, milk and eggs continue to increase each week. Brenden, 59, who lives with her mother, Lillian Brenden, 92, doesn’t waste her time worrying – instead she uses it to discover ways to save money The […]
By Jan Jackson The cooking-fresh season has started and to prove it, shoppers carried empty produce bags and baskets into the Silverton Farmers’ Market Saturday, June 14, and left with them full. While returning shoppers made straight for their favorite vendors, new shoppers took more time looking to see who and what was there. New market manager Courtney Basile, a […]
Celebrating the Fourth of July, we learned at an early age, meant observance of our independence from another nation – our freedom from domination. Now celebrating 232 years of freedom, let’s truly echo the celebration of life that has the side effect of aliveness, just as poetry is the outcome of mindfulness. The more alive we feel the more receptive […]
By Samantha Wiegand
Joy Bayer wonders “Why do we keep buying more when what we already have is durable and
usable?”
Read More…
In the second half of the nineteenth century, a young woman who would later lead Oregon’s women voters to the polls came to the Willamette Valley by wagon train. Abigail Jane Scott (1834-1915) moved to Lafayette in 1852 with her father and eight siblings, her mother died along the trail.
