Culture Features

This weekend, 19-year-old Shelby Ross will ride into the Sister's Rodeo Arena on the back of her 18-year-old gelding, Boss, fulfilling her lifelong dream of being the Sisters Rodeo Queen.
Ross, who grew up in Sisters and is currently studying Animal Equine Science at Oregon State University, remembers the first time she saw the Sisters Rodeo Queen. “I thought it was the coolest thing for the Rodeo Queen to come out all blinged out and shiny – she was just awesome,” Ross says. “The second I turned 18, I tried out for rodeos.”

The life of a beard starts out as just a little stubble on a man's face. The man thinks, perhaps I'll just let it grow a little more, see what happens. His wife and coworkers humor him, thinking it's just a phase. A few weeks later, his beard enters the second and pivotal stage: unkempt. He may be trimming and preening his facial hair, but unfortunately at this point in time, the man's wife or coworkers will glance his way and, for a few seconds, think he is homeless. And then comes stage three, when the beard grows into its shape and begins to fit the man's face. He thinks, this is me. I am now a bearded man. His wife decides she loves it. His coworkers start growing their own beards. This is the stage we like to call Awesome. And next week, there will be a whole lot of Awesome in Bend.
If you've been living under a rock, let us be the first to inform you that Bend will host the first National Beard and Moustache Championships on Saturday, June 5. Thousands of awesome facial-haired dudes (and perhaps some gals – there will be no gender testing) will converge at Les Schwab Amphitheater for the competition where they'll compete for $5,000 in prize money and eternal glory.

Theresa “Teafly” Peterson arrived in Bend in 2003 when her van broke down and she decided to stick around for the winter. Around that same time, a gay man was beaten at a Bend nightclub, leading to the passage of the Bend Equal Rights Ordinance.
Peterson had grown up in a Massachusetts town with a sizeable gay community, but the crime and the fallout that followed forced her to realize that there was some work to be done in her new hometown. Since then, Peterson has solidified a place for herself in the area's artistic landscape – making short films, shooting photographs, painting and teaching for the Caldera program while also exploring other creative endeavors. But she's also remained a close ally of Central Oregon's LGBTQ (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community.

When 80 competitors lined up to start the first Pole Pedal Paddle (PPP) in 1976 armed with equipment that you're more likely to find hanging over a mantelpiece than in a lift line, little did they know that they were becoming involved in what would eventually become Bend's biggest community sporting event.
They also weren't aware that they were pioneering a new type of event. Run/bike/swim triathlons were just becoming known nationally. A cross country ski/bike/kayak event had been staged annually for several years in Truckee, California. But a race featuring five sports? Now that was new.
Thirty-four years later, the PPP has established itself as the quintessential Bend event. It's all about fitness, being outdoors and getting to use all sorts of cool gear. (Quick, someone call a Subaru rep, we have a sponsorship opportunity here!)