My favorite recipes

Pam Becker has spent all but about four years of her life in Colfax. The daughter of Bill and Evelyn Closson, she grew up on the family farm. Her brother, Dr. Bill Closson, came back to Colfax after graduating from WSU, followed by the University of Washington Medical School, to help recruit young doctors to Colfax. After his too-early death, his partners have continued that legacy.

When she was a small child, the family lived on Deanway Street, and she met Keith Becker when she was 18 months old and he was three. They began dating when she was a Colfax High School senior and he was a sophomore at Central Washington University.

Pam and Keith dated for two years, married and had Jennifer two years later. Keith was playing baseball at CWU, but Pam was working at Washington State University, so he transferred and finished his degree in mechanical engineering at WSU.

Keith started working at Colfax Grain Growers after college, which then became Whitman County Growers, and now Pacific Northwest Growers. He is PNW’s operations manager. His largest project was the McCoy Loader facility, which is jointly operated by PNW Growers and Co-Ag. The loader is a rail transfer facility for loading grain on unit trains of 110 cars and has about two miles of track to accomplish the job.

As if he isn’t busy enough, Keith is now renovating a houseboat. He has done much of the work in their home. Their house was built when Dr. and Mrs. Ole Slind decided to downsize. Pam giggles at it being a downsize, as it was spacious enough for a family of five.

Pam drove school bus for Colfax School District from 1988 to 2014. Starting as a substitute, she worked when farmers who drove bus were busy in the fields. In addition to driving bus, she worked as the “library lady” in Jennings Elementary, coordinating with Jan Varnes, the school librarian, who worked from the high school library. She spent her last three years teaching Title I reading.

Her favorite activity at school was working with Jan. Pam did readers’ theater with the students, art projects, and enjoyed having students in the library at recess. She loved book fairs, too. It was a joy to work with the kids. Seeing the need for a little help in the library and kids needing some mentoring, she invited five students each year to join her Junior Library Helpers program, shelving books and doing fun projects. They became very close and kept in touch years after graduating.

“I truly think that if kids feel secure and have high self-esteem, they can achieve anything.” She patterned her relationships with students after Coach Bob Bafus’s model. All the students were her favorites.

Now Pam is busy caring for grandkids, spending summer at the lake, caring for her mother and going out to lunch with girlfriends with time to relax and visit. The Beckers enjoy Lake Roosevelt, close to her sister, Julie Dashiell. Julie teaches English and consumer and family studies at Hunters, and her husband is a minister at Sedonia. He officiated at the weddings of the Becker children.

Decorating and cooking for the holidays are favorite activities for Pam. She worked with Karen Stall at her flower shop before working at Colfax School District. Making dried and silk arrangements is fun, and she was taught by the best--Connie Young, Vicki Broeckel and Karen Stall. She admits to enjoying shopping, too.

The Beckers have three adult children. Jennifer is married to Matthew Harris, and they live in Duvall, with their three children. Jennifer is an accountant.

KC and Julianne Becker live in Kirkland right on the lake, and have two sons. He is an accounting manager at Comcast.

Jaci and Ian Wallace live in Moscow where she works for Bain Capital, from home and in Boston. He has a genetic counseling practice in Pullman. They have two little girls. All three Becker kids are WSU grads and have master’s degrees.

Pam’s mother and her grandmother, Marion Filan, were wonderful cooks, so they started her cooking early. She began helping Sara Sue Cochran with harvest cooking when she was twelve, which gave her another mentor and friend. While she was working, she didn’t have time to can and freeze fruits and vegetables, but she learned the process with her mother and grandmother.

Having time to cook, visit friends and see her children and grandchildren makes retirement a delight for Pam.

Recipes:

Grandma Marion’s Clam Dip

1 16-ounce container small curd cottage cheese

1 8-ounce package cream cheese

2 6.5-ounce cans minced clams

garlic salt--to taste

coarsely ground pepper--to taste

Worcestershire sauce

2-3 dashes Tabasco sauce

Cream cottage cheese and cream cheese with mixer. Add garlic salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce. Add enough Worcestershire sauce to change the color of the dip mixture.

Mix in Tabasco and 1/2 can clam juice. Drain the rest of the juice from the cans of clams, and then add clams to the dip mixture. Refrigerate at least 3 hours--the longer, the better.

Triple Butterscotch Brownies

3/4 cup butter

3 cups light brown sugar

3 eggs

2 1/4 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 heaping cup walnuts

1 cup flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Melt butter over low heat. Remove from heat; stir in sugar and cool. Stir in eggs, flour, baking powder, salt. Stir until blended. Add vanilla and stir. Add nuts and coconut and mix.

Spread into a well-greased 9x13-inch pan. Bake 30-35 minutes. Do not overbake.

Simple Cinnamon Rolls

2 loaves frozen bread dough

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 Tablespoons milk

1 package butterscotch pudding--not “instant”

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Thaw dough but don’t let rise. Cut or pull one loaf into small pieces, forming ball slightly larger than a golf ball. Place in a greased 9x13-inch pan. Melt butter and brown sugar, milk, pudding mix, cinnamon and nuts. Pour over dough balls. Pull second loaf apart and fill in holes of first layer. Let rise 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes. Remove from oven; let stand a few minutes, then flip onto serving dish or waxed paper.

*May use a Bundt pan, but cooking time would be 40 minutes or longer.