State FFA officers attend Port session

Washington State FFA Officers attended the the Port of Whitman board meeting last Thursday in Colfax. They included President Sadie Aronson from White River, Treasurer Kyle Johnson from Yelm, Secretary Naddile Widner from Walla Walla and Sentinel Zachary Schilter from Chehalis. Not in attendance was the State Reporter Karlee Hansen from Ellensburg who was at the Nevada State Convention in Reno.

After the regular business of the meeting was finished the port commissioners invited questions from the FFA officers.

The officers went over what they have accomplished over the year. They started with having the honor of being elected after interviews, testing and public speaking in front of the state convention at WSU last May.

The officers are all high school grads who are taking a gap year, an unpaid year of service before attending college. They have visited the Capitol in Olympia and Washington, D.C., where they visited legislators and discussed Washington Agriculture and Agricultural education.

During this year they spent nine weeks last fall visiting FFA chapters at high schools throughout the state. At the chapter visits, they had the opportunity to teach about leadership, agriculture and FFA.

Over the summer they visited several county fairs and the state fair where they were able to see the various projects put on by students such as market animals and landscape design.

It’s just a really, really cool way to showcase the diversity, Aronson said.

As they’re closing their year as officers, they are now learning more about the industry and business sides of agriculture.

Schilter went looking for business opportunities to visit in the Spokane-Pullman area and came across the Port of Whitman’s meeting and made a request for their group to be allowed to attend. Attending the meeting gave them a chance to find out what goes on at a port meeting as well as express their thanks for use of a training site earlier.

Johnson said he initially wondered how Whitman County could have a ‘port.’

“I am from western Washington, where we live on the coast, and a port is for exporting goods across the ocean,” explained Johnson, retelling his first reactions, “and very embarrassingly was confused and said, ‘Port of Whitman County, what port would they have in Whitman County? Where is the water for there to be a port? And I’m sure you all know that is not the case of the kind of port I was thinking about.”

“Well, we drink sand,” Port Commission President Kristine Meyer joked before explaining that the port does have a physical presence along the river, both for recreational as well as facilities that utilize the river system to export commodities to the west coast for export.

“You think about ports as a place of commerce, you think about the ways that that’s happening nowadays also being online, and so we also operate a fiber optic network that brings goods electronically to and from Whitman County residents,” Meyer added.

The port has the Port of Whitman Business Air Center, Boyer Park and Marina and the ports of Wilma, Almota and Central Ferry.

“We serve as an economic development engine for the region in partnership with other port organizations that neighbor us,” said Meyer.

Commissioner Tom Kammerzell discussed the various business interests of the port, including boards and committees.

“The state of Washington, in 1912 they gave very generous dispensation to the port districts, and it’s all centered around economics and job growth, and that can mean a different thing in different areas,” Kammerzell said.

Schilter compared two ports he was familiar with that were only separated my a short drive, but had completely different focuses.

“In talking about it, even since 1958 when you got started here, just looking at how much this has developed it’s absolutely amazing as to what it has been able to do for not only the Colfax community, but just the Whitman County community,” said Schilter, impressing Kammerzell with his knowledge of the port.

At one point in the conversation, Port Attorney Bruce Ensley asked the officers about their diverse backgrounds.

Aronson was raised with horses and was not involved in agricultural production. But after moving she decided to become more involved, and became a farmer, first by raising rabbits for breeding and showing in a backyard shed before eventually moving into market hogs.

“It was a really, really cool way for me to kind of step into agriculture from a different perspective,” said Aronson.

Widner wasn’t raised so much around agriculture as agri-tourism, but was introduced into production ag when her mom remarried into a fruit tree production family that grew cherries, apples, prunes and peaches.

Johnson didn’t grow up on a farm, but he worked on his grandfather’s hay production farm. It was a small scale operation for locals, but acted as an introduction for him into agriculture.

Schilter was raised on a dairy, trading work for cows. Now with 20 head of his own, he sells the milk.

The FFA President later turned the question back onto the commissioners, asking them how they got involved in the port. Commissioner Tom Kammerzell started out explaining how his involvement stemmed from his interest in economic growth and wanting to find ways of mitigating job loss in small communities.

“Unlike like county commissioners and everybody else that have obligations and not enough money, they’re always the bad guys for what they don’t do, we’re not so much here,” said Kammerzell.

Commissioner John Love has been a commissioner for the Port of Whitman for longer than the FFA officers have been alive, coming into the role in 1996.

“It was so many years ago, I forgot,” said Love.

He explained his involvement in the manufacturing business and his interest in industry. Love became interested in the port and its interest in attracting industry. Love added his background in the Navy and dealing with ports, which also led to an interest in the Port of Whitman.

“I got interested in the port and what the port was doing... and I found it to be as interesting each year as you could anticipate,” said Love.

Ensley noted that Love was being humble. He is a retired admiral who’s seen ports from all over the world.

Commissioner Meyer has only been a commissioner for a couple of years. She has a strong interest in public service, giving back to the community and public-private partnerships, and was appointed to the board.

Schilter noted one of the hot topics the officers had come across while recently in Olympia was the river systems. Schilter asked the commissioners, “What does the future look like?”

Kammerzell first brought up the the east-west divide in the state; how the west side of the state has the population to make decisions that affect the entirety of the state, but many of those decisions aren’t in consideration of the east side of the state. Kammerzell described the need for more discussion across the state about agriculture and better communication between the two sides of he state.

“These dams are for navigation, recreation, electrical production, irrigations, flood control; it’s not fair when they’re comparing apples and grapes or coconuts,” said Kammerzell. “Not everyone in agriculture is very adept or willing to speak about agriculture and the accolades of it, but we need to do a better job of it because if we don’t, there will go our economy.”

The FFA officers invited the Port Commissioners to attend and support the State FFA Convention on the WSU campus, May 9-11.

“I’m always impressed with you young people. You’re intelligent, you’re inquisitive, you’re very considerate and polite, and I appreciate every bit of it. You’re very important in my book,” said Love.