2016 Ag Journal - Fall by Daily Record

Ag Journal Daily Record Fall 2016

Ward Rugh roots ■ Open range cattle ■

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Ag Journal Editor Joanna Markell

Table of contents Ward Rugh Inc. roots go back to 1934 Page 4

Publisher Heather Hernandez Advertising Contact us: Ag Journal 401 N. Main Street Ellensburg, WA 98926 509-925-1414 The Ag Journal is published three times a year by Kittitas County Publishing LLC. Contents copyrighted 2016 unless otherwise noted.

What’s ‘open range’ in Kittitas County?

Jack and Beneitta Eaton celebrate 70 years side by side ranching

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Ward Rugh Inc. roots go back to 1934 Early race horse demands helped grow local industry By MIKE JOHNSTON For the Daily Record

t was 1934 in the Kittitas Valley, in the depth of the Great Depression, and Ward Rugh of Ellensburg, despite the nation’s dark and seemingly unrelenting economic downturn, thought there may be a business future hauling and selling hay outside the county. At that time it was a year after horse racing was legalized in Washington and several other states. Demand began to grow for quality hay. He didn’t know it at the time, but the outbreak of World War II, years later, also would spark the need for hay. “He scraped enough money together to buy his first truck from Kelleher Motor Company in Ellensburg and began hauling hay to Globe Feed Mills, located along Airport Way in Seattle,” wrote the late Yvonne Prater, a Daily Record freelance writer in a 1981 newspaper article featuring Ward Rugh. “Even with tough times, his business expanded.” Back in 1934 Rugh’s business was named Ward Rugh Hay and Trucking Co. and began with him and a few other drivers. He added trucks when he could and new drivers.

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Compressed hay bales are processed for shipping at Ward Rugh in Ellensburg on Sept. 9. The work by Rugh, who died at 86 in 1995, created the foundation that later became Ward Rugh Inc. of Ellensburg, now a major supplier of timothy and other hay products to U.S. and overseas buyers around the world.

In the 1981 article, Rugh, then 73 years old, said the Kittitas Valley can grow the finest timothy hay in the world. He credited the nearby mountains and foothills of the Cascade range with affecting weather patterns to bring in brisk

winds that moderate summer temperatures and more quickly and efficiently dry the cut that’s on the ground before baling. This preserves a more consistent green color, a major factor that overseas buyers want.

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The firm continues to be based at University Way and Wenas Street in Ellensburg and has additional storage facilities elsewhere in the Kittitas Valley. It has 50 full-time employees and contracts with many independent truckers and hay growers who are individual business people in their own right and call the valley their home. It’s estimated that hay exported to Japan, in an early year when that export market first opened, may have been around 10,000 tons a year or less from Rugh’s company. Now, the company has annual sales of around 140,000 tons of all types of hay and hay products each year, according to Rollie Bernth, company president. He said about 70 percent of that is timothy, and about 30 percent is alfalfa. Bernth, 78, married one of Rugh’s daughters, Marla Rugh, in 1958. Rollie began work at the firm in January 1978, and a year later started in marketing and became managervice president under Ward Rugh as president.

Rollie became president after Ward died. Marla also works in the business. “When I came on the scene (in 1978) Ward was doing just about everything,” Bernth said. “He was 70 then and going pretty strong. The company was a lot smaller then but it was growing in the right direction.” Bernth in his many years with the company has been part of much change in the hay industry and has presided over years of growth, technological advancements, market setbacks and gains, and several other challenges. He said the firm’s goals are the same as they were in the early years. “The industry has seen significant changes through the years, and we (Ward Rugh Inc.) have changed with it,” Bernth said recently, “but our goal, as it always has been, is to supply the very best quality hay that we possibly can. That will never change. I can’t stress that too much; the best quality hay is what growers want, what we want and what our buyers are always looking for.”

The value of timothy hay in Kittitas County

up a small percentage of the export hay grown in the county. In a good harvest and market year, about 90 percent of the timothy hay crop is exported overseas to Japan, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, The value to growers of all hay produced in Kittitas County is estimated other Middle Eastern countries, at more than $50 million annually, with Vietnam and other Pacific Rim timothy estimated to value $45 million countries, with Japan being the single largest export customer. Several Ellensor more of that total. These estimates are for a typical good harvest year and burg-area commercial hay companies reflect years with strong pricing. Recent buy hay in the Kittitas Valley and the softening of hay prices has reduced this Columbia Basin from growers, and the hay is later exported in agreements overall estimate. with overseas customers. The local Timothy and alfalfa hay grown for firms process the hay, transport it and the export market is the single-largest export it through the ports of Seattle agricultural product raised in Kittitas and Tacoma. County. Many timothy growers raise -- Federal Census of Agriculture, alfalfa as a rotation crop which makes online information, local exporters.

Roots in the family farm Rugh was the son of Leon Rugh who came to the valley in 1904 from Missouri, according to a 1989 county

family history book. He worked here a year and later went back to Missouri.

See Ward Rugh, Page 6

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WARD RUGH Continued from Page 5 After marrying Ida Belle Morris in 1908, his new family, with young sons Ward and Clyde, came back to valley to stay and work. Leon Rugh farmed at different locations in the Kittitas Valley, but later became ill, sold his farm and moved his family to Puyallup. Ward and his siblings learned about farming and hard work from the ground up while in the valley. Ward Rugh, as a young man, began work with the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1926, but returned to the valley in 1930 to work on the construction of the Highline Canal system that would supply irrigation water to the Kittitas Reclamation District. In 1933, he and Laura Brandt were married. A year later Ward began his hay and grain trucking business. In the mid-to-late 1930s, Rugh found ways to stay in the direction

A call from L.A. Prater’s article said Rugh received a phone call in the late 1930s from a hay dealer in Los Angeles looking for more abundant supplies of timothy hay for race horse tracks, including those in Tijuana. The man wanted to expand into parts of Southern California, namely in Los Angeles at the Santa Anita track, and wanted quality timothy hay. “And I shipped him a train carload of timothy, and that’s where my timothy business all started from,” Rugh said in Prater’s article. Hay was

shipped by rail in those days, getting 16 to 17 tons in a car. Rugh got $20 a ton for his timothy hay on that first race track sale. Business picked up and Rugh’s timothy next went to the Hollywood and Del Mar tracks. In the San Francisco area, Kittitas Valley timothy later went to the Bay Meadows and Golden Gate tracks. Longacres in Western Washington became a customer, too. Hay sales were taking off and so was his business. After World War II began for the United States in December 1941 the government shutdown horse racing tracks at a time when Rugh had large inventories of timothy in storage. “There I was, stuck with all the timothy hay I’d bought, and I thought I was broke again,” Rugh said in the 1981 story. Rugh’s big L.A. customer said he also had barns full of hay he’d bought from Rugh and was stuck, too. As it turned out, the L.A. customer knew movie studio mogul Louis B.

Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Mayer bought at cost his full supply of Kittitas Valley timothy for his many horses at his California ranch after learning of the predicament. Mayer’s supply lasted him five years “and he kept my customer from going broke,” Rugh reportedly said.

Then I got lucky As the war went on, the nation’s military contacted Rugh about buying some of his hay. “Then I got lucky as the U.S. Army started buying hay,” Rugh said. “And they took all the timothy off my hands. Orders from the military went as high as 80 train car loads of hay, some going to India.” One army official told him they shipped some to locations where there weren’t any horses, at least yet. Rugh told Prater there were two times in his early career when his company was the only one in the Kittitas Valley that had access to any significant amount of hay; the reason is that he bought it

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of growth, one of which was hauling and selling hay for local fuel companies. In the Depression some local farmers paid their fuel bill by giving a portion of their hay to the fuel companies. In turn, the companies hired Rugh to sell and haul hay to the Puget Sound area. He’d make the return trip with oil and gasoline for the companies. He also started selling chopped and baled hay to meat packing firms and large feed companies in Western Washington.

from certain local cattle ranchers who grew their own and had it in abundance. Rugh recounted in the article that the military began expanding and building new airport runways, including at Moses Lake. Wartime emergency construction included work in the winter. Three feet of hay and straw was needed to be spread on the fresh concrete to insulate and keep frost and snow off. After spreading, the hay then had to be protected from hungry roaming livestock, and wild horses that were in the area in those days. The army hired cowboys on horseback to keep the animals off the hay and new runways.

See Ward Rugh, Page 8

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

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WARD RUGH Continued from Page 7

Opportunities, challenges The Moses Lake hay project used up most of his immediate stocks with none left for the public. Rugh ended up hauling hay balers to the Malta, Montana area to bale local hay there, and ship some to customers and some back to Ellensburg in train cars and cattle cars. Prater’s article said manpower shortages in many U.S. industries during WWII was a constant challenge, and Rugh was seeing it on local farms in the valley, too, where heavy bales of hay needed to be loaded. In 1944 Rugh devised what he called a pickup hayloader, with the help of a local motor company operator and John Bruketta, another local hay dealer. The machines’ use spread through the Pacific Northwest until hay conveyor elevators were developed in the late 1950s, the

article said. Long after the war, Japanese began buying the valley’s timothy in the early 1970s for that country’s new and growing horse racing industry. That helped boost timothy sales for Ward Rugh Inc. and other local hay processors and exporters, including Anderson Hay and Grain Co. Inc. This demand stimulated more timothy production in the valley, and Japanese dairies soon began seeking the hay, too. Japanese inspectors later began rejecting some shipments of baled timothy from the valley because they occasionally found a few stray grasses of a different type mixed in the timothy. They pronounced that this was contamination, fearing that the larvae of the Hessian fly could possibly hitch a ride on these stray grasses from the U.S., grow and multiply in Japan and threaten to damage Japan’s barley, rice and other grain crops. The fly thrived on eating grain plants. The Hessian fly isn’t present in Kittitas County, and no flies or larvae

were ever seen by inspectors on hay from the valley, but what was seen were stray grasses that might play host to the insects, the Japanese said.

Finding a way Shipments were halted by Japan altogether in 1976, said Rollie Bernth, and efforts began to find a solution to the export blockage. Bernth said he came to Ward Rugh Inc. in 1978 as vice president while a solution to the Japanese embargo was being sought. He said Rugh, through his business resources and personal contact with members of Congress, highly supported efforts spearheaded by Ron Anderson of Anderson Hay and Grain, and other exporters, to find a way to reopen the Japanese market with the help of federal agriculture scientists. A process to fumigate baled hay in ocean-going containers against any flies or larvae was later approved by the Japanese, and shipments started back up in July 1979. The hay export industry in the Kittitas Valley grew,

along with other areas along the West Coast and in Pacific Northwest states. “The overseas market to Japan really grew significantly at that point,” Bernth said. He estimates that Ward Rugh Inc.’s shipping grew by up to 10 percent a year until more recent years. As the hay exporting and shipping increased, the firm did less agri-business trucking of potatoes, warehouse boxes, beef and other items. When hay exports to Japan restarted, Bernth estimates there was less than 5,000 acres of commercial timothy in production in the valley. That figure is now well over 25,000 acres. “The market is constantly changing; just when you get to a somewhat stable point there’s always another challenge that crops up,” Bernth said. “To remain competitive the company has made big investments in buildings, equipment and related infrastructure over the years.”

See Ward Rugh, Page 9

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Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Rollie Bernth, president of Ward Rugh, poses in front of the office in Ellensburg on Friday.

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WARD RUGH Continued from Page 8

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The fumigation process needed at least a stable 70-degree day to undertake the process outdoors in the Pacific Northwest. This made for large amounts of hay needing to be processed and moved in a small window each summer. Anderson Hay and Grain and Ward Rugh Inc. cooperated in seeking a way to fumigate during other times of the year. Ward Rugh Inc. in 1992 was the first timothy hay exporter to build a heated building in which to fumigate, year-round, at the same time many ocean-going containers filled with hay, Bernth said, and other firms followed later with their own heated buildings. In 1996, Ward Rugh Inc. supported efforts led by Anderson Hay and Grain and federal agricultural

scientists and other firms to develop a fumigation process, approved by Japan, for double-compressed timothy hay bales. This allows twice as much hay to be shipped in the same container for the same freight rate. Japan continues to be the singlelargest market for the nation’s West Coast hay products. In 2012, Ward Rugh Inc. in Ellensburg was the site of fumigation tests aimed at reducing the fumigation process time-line from eight to four days. The tests were successful but have yet to be officially approved by Japan. The national U.S. hay industry is working on gaining approval of a fumigation process approved by China to allow shipment of U.S. timothy to that huge and growing forage market, Bernth said. 1515572

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That approval, optimistically, could possibly come in a year or two, he added. “The outlook for timothy hay for export around the world continues to be a good one, despite lots of challenges that we face every year, including the ever-present concern about the weather at harvest time and the value of the Japanese yen that’s suppressed the buying power of our Japanese customers,” Bernth said. He said Ward Rugh Inc. continues to carry out founder Ward Rugh’s policies of fair, honest dealings with growers, employees, truckers and overseas customers. “The market outlook for the Kittitas Valley’s high-quality timothy hay continues to be great; we can still grow the best timothy hay in the world,” Bernth said.

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

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What’s ‘open range’ in Kittitas County? Means more than signs saying entering or leaving rangeland By TIP HUDSON For the Daily Record

f you ask 10 Kittitas County residents coming out of a local

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Some might say they’ve passed by signs while driving on roads in rural county areas, signs that say “Range Area - Watch Out For Livestock,” and others saying “Leaving Range Area.” To know the legal specifics of what those signs mean, according to state law and county ordinances, is crucial, however, for those who now live in the rural areas of Kittitas County, well outside city limits, and those who may want to move to a rural county site. We associate the term open range with a vegetation type characterized by the absence of trees or crops. We may think of wide open spaces, maybe open spaces with no fences. Almost everyone thinks of livestock. These are all correct, but there’s much more to it. In Kittitas County, by law, the range area is a defined area with boundaries and rules.

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Washington State University hired me to work as a “rangeland and livestock management specialist.” I’m tasked with communicating broadly what we already know about how to manage rangeland — land where the dominant vegetation is shrubs, grasses, and forbs — and developing new knowledge through interaction with real people and

places. I’m also tasked with teaching people how to graze domestic animals on rangeland without harming the productive potential and natural functions of the landscape — the provision of clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat and other natural features. There are many “rangelands” on which cattle or sheep do not range, but which are grazed by other herbivores. Deer and antelope do not play together in Central Washington on the “range” (although cattle and elk do), and there are some discouraging words thrown about, usually in regard to cattle drifting away from home and becoming out of place. This is where “open range” concepts come in. Inside the collection of state laws that regulate land use, livestock activities, and the liability of the owners of both land and livestock, open range refers to areas where the owner of livestock is not liable for damages caused by their animals, that is, unless the damages occurred on someone else’s property which was protected by what is called a “legal fence.” This is a difficult way to think about the distinction.

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keep cows out. Often the adjacent cow or livestock owner will be willing to partner on a good fence, because good fences really do make good neighbors. If you live in a designated open range If you have questions about how area, meaning not inside an identified to improve an existing fence, call the stock-restricted area, and you wish to WSU-Kittitas County Extension office at have a livestock- and cow-free property, 962-7507 or email hudsont@wsu.edu. it is your responsibility to build a fence to — Tip Hudson

13 | Fall 2016 Ag Journal

OPEN RANGE Continued from Page 13 What is actually defined in local ordinances and more directly regulated by law is “stock-restricted areas.” The U.S. borrowed the idea from Great Britain, where a stockrestricted area is the area where animals must be confined by a fence and if they get out the owner is liable for damages. That part is relatively straightforward. Kittitas County (and most other state counties) have legal boundaries for these stock-restricted areas delineated in legalese text in county ordinances. These areas are sometimes said to be under “herd law.”

Everything else Open range is everything

else outside designated stockrestricted areas. In open range (outside the defined stock-restricted area) animal owners are generally not liable for damages unless, as mentioned earlier, their animals succeed in breaking through a legal fence onto someone else’s property. Open range does not mean that animal owners have the right to let their animals run “at-large,” going wherever they want to. Rules about at-large animals are a topic for another article, but open range does not mean that one does not have to keep track of one’s livestock. It primarily defines liability for damages caused by livestock. So if you are driving through

Ellensburg near the city limits and someone’s cow has gotten out of the pasture and is in the road, the owner of the animal is liable for damage to your car if you hit the cow. The location is within the county’s identified stock-restricted area. If, however, you are out on the Vantage Highway 20 miles from town inside the open range and you hit a cow that’s in the road, you (the driver) are liable for damage to the cow, most likely her death. These exact boundaries are difficult to track reading legal descriptions in an ordinance and watching for the county roadside signs. However, the stock-restricted areas can be viewed on an

online map at the county’s official mapping portal, COMPAS, found at: http:// gis.co.kittitas.wa.us/maps/. Navigate to and click on “Permits & Land Use” in the left menu box and you’ll see an open range map icon ready for you. Or, Google “stock restricted and open range areas of Kittitas County” and click on the heading and then on the map icon. Tip Hudson is a Washington State University assistant professor, a WSU Extension rangeland and livestock specialist, and the director of the Kittitas County-WSU Extension office in Ellensburg.

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Jack and Beneitta Eaton 70 years side-by-side ranching

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EATON

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Continued from Page 16 Yes, they have a deep well of warm family memories from which to draw; but no, they’re not just sitting away their days in rocking chairs. They’re still working as much as they can, side by side, at the ranch 17 miles south of Ellensburg. They continue to make new family memories with their grown children and grandchildren, and with their great-grandchildren. Beneitta and Jack also help create new memories among friends, extended family, neighbors and acquaintances every year by allowing them to volunteer to ride horseback in January in the annual Eaton family cattle drive from Selah Butte to their ranch’s fields in the canyon. They’ve been together daily

for 70 years and all but 4 ½ of those years have been in Kittitas County. Jack said it’s hard for him to remember any time in his life during which Beneitta wasn’t involved. “We always had common goals and worked together to reach them, past, present and future,” Jack said. “We worked together, nearly always, in most everything we did,” Beneitta said in some of the life memories she recently wrote down. “One friend said, ‘Where I see one I see both of you.’” She loves working with cattle, she said, and loves the open land and the beauty of the outdoors that “God created for our pleasure.”

See Eaton, Page 21

by operating their own rodeo stock contracting business and also raising beef Jack and Beneitta Eaton were honored cattle. for their 70 years together and in the local The Eaton’s profile read by the rodeo ranching industry during the 2016 Ellens- announcer at the Sept. 5 performance, in burg Rodeo at Monday’s Grand Entry. They part, said: rode in a horse-drawn, open carriage and “In two days on Sept 7, Jack waved to the crowd while the announcer and Beneitta will celebrate 70 years of read a short profile of their lives to the marriage! Their calves and cows have been audience. part of the history of this rodeo. In the mid Later in that rodeo performance, Frank 1980s they began supplying the cows for and Charlot Beard, longtime rodeo stock the wild cow milking and their calves for contractors from the Kittitas Valley, also the roping events. For 13 years the ropers were honored for their recent anniversary had a lot to say about how tough those marking 69 years of marriage with an range-raised calves were at the end of announcement to the crowd. their ropes. Family members note that the two “Many ranchers and friends count it a couples were connected by marriage privilege to be asked to help herd Eaton several years ago when one of Frank and cows home to the ranch in January. This Charlot’s grandsons, Daniel Beard, married annual two-day roundup has come to be one of Beneitta and Jack’s granddaughknown as the Yakima River Canyon Winter ters, Janelle Eaton; Daniel and Janelle Cattle Drive. It always ends with a hot (daughter of Cristi and John Eaton) have homemade lunch and lots of stories shared followed in their grandparents’ footsteps around the tables at the ranch.”

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Jack Eaton monitors his herd's movement to Burbank Creek Road in the Yakima River Canyon during the January 2014 annual cattle drive.

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Eaton family cattle, mostly pregnant, move on Burbank Creek Road toward the Yakima River Canyon highway during the family's 2014 cattle drive to get the cows to the fields of the home ranch for birthing. 20 | Fall 2016 Ag Journal

EATON

Jack and Beneitta Eaton

Continued from Page 18 Jack and Beneitta celebrated their 70th anniversary with family and friends Sept. 4 at their ranch home in the Yakima Canyon. When you learn a little about their life together you get the feeling they’ve been celebrating their life partnership in some way nearly everyday.

Working the land Beneitta and Jack’s childhood years were in different communities in rural western Idaho. Jack’s family lived near Worley when he was born, then later moved to near Plummer, Idaho. They met in high school there while she lived near Sanders, Idaho.

Beneitta’s father, Jack Schofield, worked as a logger so their family farm was taken care of mostly by his wife, Blanche, with their kids doing daily chores. That included eight to 10 milk cows, lots of chickens and rabbits, and a large garden. Hay and grain also were grown to feed their livestock. Extra produce and milk, along with dressed chickens and rabbits, were sold to local stores. Beneitta said her dad would give her a little list of chores for each day before he went to work. “I helped my mom with all the different chores and work of the farm, so I was well versed in farm life,” she

said. “Daddy taught me what to do, but I mostly learned everything the hard way. Even when I didn’t do it right, he was still encouraging me.” Those attending the one-room schoolhouse with Beneitta, including her sister and cousin, for her eight grades before high school became a family to her, she said. “We would start our morning (at school) with the Flag Salute and prayer,” Beneitta said. The Eaton family, N.N. (Bill) and Hazel Eaton, early on farmed near Worley, and after more children came into the family they moved to south of Plummer.

See Eaton, Page 23

Age: Both 88 years old Married: Sept. 7, 1946 in Sanders, Idaho Work: The Eaton families established their ranch in the Yakima River Canyon in 1949; the cow-calf operation annually produces calves for sale. Honored: Jack and Beneitta Eaton were named Cattlemen of the Year in 2004 by the Kittitas County Cattlemen’s Association. A son and daughter-in-law, John and Christi Eaton, were named Cattlemen of the Year in 1996. Offspring: Three sons and two daughters, each with their own grown children and four with grandchildren — John and wife Cristi (with their own ranch near the mouth of the Yakima River Canyon); Ken and wife, Linda, (at the canyon ranch); Bob and wife, Peggy (at the ranch); Kathie of Bonney Lake; and Sherilyn of Vancouver, Wash. Grandkids: Jack and Beneitta, from their five children, have 12 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.

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Molly Morrow photography

The Akehurst family chuck wagon takes a turn into the Big Pines recreation area during the 2014 Eaton family cattle drive. Cattle are rested and volunteer cowboys and cowgirls get a hearty snack before heading on to Jack and Beneittaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ranch farther north in the Yakima River Canyon. 22 | Fall 2016 Ag Journal

EATON Continued from Page 21

Jack, in some of his family history he wrote down, said his father cleared most of the cultivated ground for their farm near Plummer, making farmland out of timber and brushland. The family raised a herd of cattle on some of their unimproved ground, as well as raised hogs. Everyone worked each day or had some kind of chore to take care of, he said. His family’s farming was done in early years with horses, Jack said, until a fire destroyed their large barn along with the horses’ tack and harnesses. Later, work changed on the farm with the purchase of a tractor and other mechanized equipment. Jack and his siblings worked side by side with their parents each day on the farm, learning the rewards of hard work and family teamship to get through hard years, along with getting an understanding of the details of raising cattle. “A great learning experience,” said Jack.

Nothing mushy Jack and Beneitta attended high school together and got to know one another better during one of their high school picnics. “We both were to be with other people but ended up with each other for the day,” she said. “Several of us went (later) to the movies, and the Lord seemed

Home life Beneitta Eaton said family life for she and Jack and their five children, as the kids grew up ranching, revolved around chores; but there was fun, too. “There was canning for our family and raising a garden,” Beneitta said in some of her written memories. “All had their chores and we worked and played together. We always had plenty to eat, but sometimes there were needs that were hard to meet. But the children never really complained; we did our best because we were a real family. What you couldn’t always buy you tried to make up in real love and time spent together. One thing that made our lives together was our faith and knowing God promised to hold our hand and walk beside us.” to say ‘that is your husband’; nothing mushy, just the bells seemed to go off.” Complicating circumstances soon after that prevented them going on their own date. Their homes were about 20 miles apart. After three dating attempts their first date involved traveling in a cattle truck, she said.

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See Eaton, Page 24

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Jack and Beneitta Eaton's annual cattle drive is a family affair, with younger cowboys participating, too, above. This young cowboy during the 2014 cattle drive was on a horse that fit his size. 23 | Fall 2016 Ag Journal

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EATON Continued from Page 23 “We both played ball so we went to each other’s games together,” Beneitta said. They later became engaged while finishing high school. There was much that drew them together, she said: both grew up working hard on the family farm or ranch and knew how to care for a variety of animals, including cattle, chickens, pigs and rabbits. They both loved to ride and work with horses. The scenic outdoors of western Idaho in all seasons was their shared enjoyment. “We were married in our little country church in Sanders (Idaho), promising to love each other ‘till death would part us,” Beneitta said. She added that Jack later came to trust Christ as savior and that drew them even closer. “I thought I was a Christian, but much later knelt at the cross and gave my all to God in an old-fashioned revival,” Beneitta said. “Taking God as the head of our home, we did our best to raise our five children in realizing the value of a Christian home.”

In the valley Jack’s parents bought property in the Kittitas Valley, specifically in the Yakima River Canyon, in 1949, after deciding it was time to get fully into the cattle ranching business. Before that Jack and Beneitta had become partners with the elder Eaton’s operation. The family operation has kept on, year after year, despite seasons of up and down beef markets, uncertain economic returns, harsh weather and good, and changes in family involvement. The ranching life includes checking on pregnant cows in the middle of the night in snow and wind who are soon to have calves, daily feeding, doctoring cows when needed and slowly moving herds to and from rangelands with family members in the saddle. There were more than a few 100-degree days out on the rangelands leased from the U.S. Army southeast of Badger Pocket. “No roads for trucking the horses to get closer out there made for a long day,” Beneitta said. There were hard, slow drives when the

cows had baby calves and pasture for them was in the Badger Pocket area near a spring. Yes, she said, there were and are hard, exhausting and frustrating times in ranching, but there’s more intangible rewards that keep coming back to her and Jack, despite her no longer riding a horse alongside the herd. Some are memories of the love of riding the range. She’s watched their children grow up in the saddle as the family rode to drive the herd long distances in earlier years to and from range and pastures. There’s been the annual joy of seeing new life with newborn calves. There was hot weather but with a refreshing view of the top of Mount Rainier in the far distance, or being on a high point catching a glimpse of Kittitas and Ellensburg below. Sometimes there was riding out from the ranch during a bright dawn and getting home in the moonlight.

See Eaton, Page 26

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A good number of volunteer drovers bring up the rear during the January 2015 Eaton family cattle drive along the Yakima River Canyon highway. The drive brings pregnant cows to the Eaton family ranch in the canyon south of Ellensburg.

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25 | Fall 2016 Ag Journal

EATON Continued from Page 24 “When we first started the family, all worked together or we never could have made it this far,” Beneitta said. “All the children rode for cows and worked in the garden. It was our home, and love and hard work held us together.” Now some of the grandkids join them when they can in their much shorter January drive to get pregnant cows to ranch pasture. Jack and Beneitta now ride in a pickup truck behind the herd. “There’s so much beauty on the ranch; flowers, birds, animals; and quiet times and family times,” Beneitta said. “Now (there’s) evening times in the swing with Jack and a cup

of coffee. It’s hard to realize that the wonderful times on my horse in the hills had to be given up. My horse died and my dog is now gone and Jack hung up my saddle. Looking at the beautiful sky I realize I still have a great God looking over us, and I’m content with the love of my life still beside me, and with a wonderful family that still loves me...To have our children and their children’s love and concern for us is a much cherished gift.”

Caring Jack said keeping the ranch and family going through the years has been by a relationship of caring. “What better place than

nature and God’s great plan of creation to learn, teach and enjoy what you do,” said Jack. “Beneitta and I will admit there has been some real trying times over the years, but then there are the blessings that also come, and it keeps us pressing on to our goal of leaving things a little better for those who follow.” When the couple were named Kittitas County Cattlemen of the Year in 2004, Jack said there’s a future for young people wanting to make a living in the livestock business. “The almighty dollar is what a lot of people judge job success by,” Jack said back then. “But that’s not the measure in ranching and farming. There’s a

lot of ups and downs, good years and lean years. What you get out of ranching may not always pay you back in dollars.” Beneitta said they’ve made many lifelong, loving and caring friends in the Kittitas Valley. “What a wonderful place God led us to, such beauty everywhere,” Beneitta said. “After 70 years it would take a book to tell my stories and memories I hold so dear. Our lives have been a series of miracles all through our life and a trust that He will never leave us. “Our lives have changed over time and years. Your love just deepens and you learn to trust God more. Every day together is another God has given us.”

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