Sharon Siers Appointed Controller and Administrative Manager at Sterling Mining Company.

Business Editors

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 14, 2004

Sterling Mining Company (OTC:SRLM) is pleased to announce the appointment of Sharon Siers as Controller and Administrative Manager.

Ms. Siers is a former telecommunications executive, most recently serving as Chief Operating Officer at Avista Communications. She has an extensive financial management background, including expertise related to mergers and acquisitions as well as SEC reporting practices. Prior to Avista, Ms. Siers held the positions of Controller at Nextlink Washington and Senior Financial Analyst at LDDS Metromedia. She brings corporate experience from former positions at IBM and Uniroyal as well as highly relevant start-up experience from her work at Avista and Nextlink. She holds a B.S. in Accounting from Bentley College and an M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina.

Ms. Siers will immediately assume a financial and administrative management role at Sterling, including the supervision of administrative staff, the preparation of financial statements and SEC filing documents, and other key financial responsibilities.

Sterling President Ray De Motte stated, "We are very fortunate to add Sharon Siers to our team at Sterling. Her financial and executive experience, coupled with her demonstrated ability to assist rapidly growing endeavors, make her an outstanding fit for our team."

Please visit the Sterling website at www.sterlingmining.com for more information.

Sterling Mining Company controls the legendary Sunshine Mine, the richest silver mine in American history with more than 360 million ounces of production over the past century. Sterling offers investors superior leverage to silver price increases through its extensive portfolio of "Silver Valley" landholdings and through strategic alliances and equity stakes in neighboring companies. Sterling has less than 10 million shares outstanding and its stock trades on the OTC Market under the symbol "SRLM."

Certain statements contained in this press release are "forward- looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based on beliefs of management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to management. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expected results.