Moses Lake Ag Hall of Fame honors pillars of the farming community
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year, 5 months AGO
Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Debbie Doran-Martinez, right, presents Glenn Leland and family with his 2023 Ag Hall of Fame award.
File photo
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | September 29, 2024 1:00 AM
MOSES LAKE — Nearly every pursuit has its hall of fame. Baseball players, model railroaders, accountants and jugglers all have a way of being immortalized as masters of their craft, sport or whatever. But here in eastern Washington, some of the greatest superstars are the folks with dirt under their nails and oil stains on their overalls.
Moses Lake’s Ag Hall of Fame has been honoring local leaders in the ag industry since 2010, according to the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the hall of fame.
“The Chamber has a committee and they read these bios and decide if they are nominees to be put forward,” said Lori Robins, marketing director for the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce. “(The number) depends on the year. Right now we have four.”
Not all the nominees are from Moses Lake. The first year the Hall of Fame was in operation, five local luminaries were nominated, only three of whom were Moses Lake residents. All, however, had made significant contributions including Ken Goodrich, who revolutionized local irrigation by lining the Basin’s irrigation ditches with concrete, pouring more than 285 miles of concrete over the course of 34 years; and Alice Parker, one of the early pioneers of the Royal Slope.
The committee evaluates nominees according to their time in local agriculture and their achievements in the community, Robins said. Some members of the hall of fame are nominated posthumously; others don’t know they’ve been nominated until the names are announced at the chamber’s October banquet.
“Candidates are recognized by their peers for not only their dedication, generosity, and selflessness, but also their demonstrated achievements, noteworthy expertise, and creative innovations that often provide a legacy of impactful results and lasting benefit to the overall enhancement of the local agricultural industry and community at large,” the chamber wrote on its website.
The names are recorded on the Chamber’s website and the biographies of the current year’s nominees are linked as well.
“They get a plaque, and we usually give them some sort of little present, like a blanket or something, that has their award on it,” Robins said.
The Moses Lake Ag Hall of Fame for 2010-2023 can be found at www.moseslake.com. The names of the 2024 honorees had not been released at press time.
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