A6 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A7
Hermiston family uses farm to give back to community
BY MAEGAN MURRAY
HERMISTON HERALD
The Wick family of Hermiston
proves every day that a farm can be
more than the crops or livestock it pro-
duces.
For more than 20 years, the family
has used its farm off of Prindle Loop
to give back to children in the commu-
nity.
Shari Wick and her husband, Mike,
who inherited the farm from his par-
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the farm.
As they raised their own two chil-
dren, they also welcomed 10 foster
children so that they, too, could expe-
rience a consistent family environment
and and life on a farm.
The Wicks also balance normal
farm operations with holding full-time
jobs and other activities. Shari Wick
has taught in the Hermiston School
District for the last nearly 30 years,
while Mike Wick has worked in agri-
culture, now serving as the manager of
the Westland Irrigation District.
“It’s been a lot of work, but I
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
wouldn’t have had it any other way,”
The Wick family poses for a photo. Pictured, from left, is Sam Wick, Mike Wick, Shari Wick and Jadie Wick. The farm has
Shari Wick said.
been in Mike Wick’s family since the 1950s.
FARM BEGINNINGS
From
humble
local
beginnings
to thriving
metropolis
Mike Wick said his parents pur-
chased the farm when he was 2 years
old after looking for a place that had
milder winters for their cattle. He said
his father was a cattle rancher and
farmer and thought that Hermiston
would best meet their needs after living
CONTIBUTED PHOTO
Bill Dean, vice president of sustainability at River Point Farms, holds a clump of onions.
Hale Farms and
River Point Farms
owners prove
hard work pays off
BY MAEGAN MURRAY
HERMISTON HERALD
The next time you are
in a Subway, Chipotle or
are munching on some
chips and Tostitos salsa,
chances are good that the
onions in those products
were grown and packaged
by a farm headquartered
in Hermiston.
River Point Farms, a
Hermiston-based opera-
tion, grows and packages
about 20 percent of the
nation’s red onions, along
with a large amount of its
yellow onions. It supplies
100 percent of Subway’s
red onions for 36 weeks
out of the year, red on-
ions for every Chipotle
restaurant in North Amer-
ica year-round, yellow
whole-peel onions year-
round to each Whataburg-
er store, which are estab-
lishments based largely in
the South and Midwest,
and provide about 50 per-
cent of onions used in
Tostitos products, just to
name a few.
Business,
however,
wasn’t always booming.
The venture started from
another farming operation
owned and operated by
some of the same found-
ers as River Point Farms.
Bob Hale, one of the
owners and founders of
River Point Farms along
with local farmer Bob
Levy, said they started
up a farming operation
called Hale Farms in 1977
with the idea they would
one day earn a successful
living. He said they never
imagined they would one
day turn their very small
operation into two thriv-
ing organizations they
operate today.
“I graduated from col-
lege in 1975, and we bor-
rowed 100 percent to buy
the farm, 100 percent to
buy the equipment and
100 percent to operate it,”
Hale said. “We worked
extremely hard for the
first 10 years, being driv-
en mostly by the fear of
failure.”
Hale said, in the begin-
ning, the goal was to just
earn any kind of a profit
they could. In those early
years, they grew hay, sug-
ar beets and grain on their
500-acre irrigated farm in
the Butter Creek valley
near Echo.
“We were just trying to
make it,” he said.
They
supplement-
ed their income with
off-farming jobs until an
adjacent farm came up
for sale, which allowed
them to double their op-
eration and begin farming
full-time. As they made
connections and built re-
lationships that allowed
them to grow their busi-
ness, they developed a
motto that Hale said real-
ly allowed them to excel.
near Condon, Oregon.
When Wick was 13 years old,
however, his father came down with
viral encephalitis, which put him into
a coma for nine years before he died
in February of 1977. During that time,
Wick’s mother was responsible for all
the farm duties while raising her three
sons.
“The thing that was admirable to
me about him and his mother, who was
a saint, was that they were able to hold
onto this place through all of that,”
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GIVING BACK
Shari Wick said raising the children
while trying to manage the family farm
have kept she and her husband busy,
but the difference they have made in
people’s lives has made all the hard
work worthwhile.
When their children were in second
grade, Shari Wick said she became at-
tached to one of her students who was
having a rough time at home. After
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Wicks took in the student, who was
followed by nine others.
“They all got to experience farm life
SEE WICK/A9
Silverdale Farms cross-breeds hearty sheep variety in Hermiston
for decades.
Tom Watson worked for Su-
perior Farms, purchasing and
feeding lambs before they were
sent to slaughter, for about 40
years. He served on the board
of directors for several years
before he retired, and, although
the Hermiston operation was
sold about “half a dozen years
BY SEAN HART
ago,” he said the company is
HERMISTON HERALD
still the largest lamb processor
A local couple have years of in the United States with a large
experience in the sheep industry facility in California.
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Karin Watson served as the
Hermiston as the industry con- secretary for the National Lamb
tinues to change.
Feeders Association for 23
Tom and Karin Watson, who years before retiring in January.
have owned Silverdale Farms She helped organize and pro-
in Hermiston for about 20 mote the NLFA Howard Wy-
years, have worked with sheep man Sheep Industry Leadership
Local couple
explain changes
to the industry
through the years
School for 28 years and recent-
ly became one of four women
to ever receive the association’s
Cane of Appreciation for ser-
vice to the sheep industry.
Even in retirement, they
continue to be involved with
sheep at the fair and breed a
SEAN HART PHOTO
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This pregnant Texel ewe was
each year.
about to give birth earlier in
SHEARING THE
March at Silverdale Farms in
INDUSTRY
Hermiston.
Tom Watson said national
policies and trends and inter- the industry, he said, and only
national competition have dra- the Superior Farms facility in
matically reduced the size of California remains.
the national sheep industry in
He said about half of the
the last 70 years. Ten facilities lamb meat consumed in the
on the West Coast processed
SEE SILVERDALE/A9
lamb meat when he started in
SEAN HART PHOTO
‘It’s not a job,
it’s a lifestyle’
Ditchen enjoys
the business
challenge, outdoor
office and visible
accomplishments
of farming
BY SEAN HART
HERMISTON HERALD
Darrin Ditchen controls
the 3,000-acre irrigation sys-
tem at Golden Valley Farms
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a button.
Ditchen, whose grandfa-
ther started Golden Valley
Farms in the Willamette
Valley, has managed the
family business’s eastern site
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1999 and said farmers must
evolve to overcome constant
challenges.
“There’s always new
challenges every year,” he
said. “The day you think you
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a new challenge in front of
you. You learn something
new every day.”
While business expenses,
such as fuel and labor costs,
SEAN HART PHOTO
Darrin Ditchen, whose father started Golden Valley Farms
in the Willamette Valley, works on the farm’s eastern site in
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continually increase, Ditch-
en said, the selling price for
the commodities grown,
such as grass seed at Golden
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even decreases.
“We’ve had to adapt,” he
said. “Usually, farmers adapt
by covering more ground,
covering more acres with
the same amount of people.
We have to become more ef-
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people, at least I am. A lot of
my friends are always look-
ing for what we can do bet-
ter. I think that’s just a good
business plan. That’s what
we do around here. We’re
always looking for ways to
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Ditchen said Golden
Valley Farms tries to im-
prove each year, and new
technology has helped. He
said a digital upgrade in the
farm’s center-pivot irrigation
system has vastly increased
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up and slow down based on
water pressure, he said, and
every ounce of water is ac-
counted for.
SEE DITCHEN/8A
Amstad Farming Company
& Amstad Produce, LLC.
GET SPRING
READY!!
56
YEARS
DESER T
CO BBLER
SHOE & BOOT REPAIR
Karin Watson holds a new lamb at Silverdale Farms in Hermiston.
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the three boys by herself ... It has meant
a lot to our family to still have it.”
Mike Wick said the fact that the
farm is still in their family means
something to him.
“I’ll always kind of have that con-
nection to it,” he said.
After a brief stint playing profes-
sional baseball, he returned home to go
to school and then take over the family
farm.
After graduating from Oregon State
University with a degree in animal
husbandry and farming, he met and
married his wife, and they settled down
on the family farm, only to have their
twins three years later.
Until then, Mike Wick had man-
aged the farm largely on his own, rais-
ing some of his own cattle, while also
leasing out portions of the land to inter-
ested farmers and cattle ranchers. After
the Wicks’ twins, son Sam and daugh-
ter Jadie, were born, Mike relied more
on leasing out the land than managing
it himself as he had less time to ded-
icate to the family farm, but that also
gave the family an opportunity to reach
out to others.
Family run and operated for over 55 years
541-567-8540
541-567-2008
120 NE 3rd St., Hermiston
Mon-Fri 8am-5pm
Striving to remain a positive force in
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1 (800) 422-7611
www.pggcountry.com
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