Schoesler Honored With Stu Bledsoe Memorial

Last week, State Senator Mark Schoesler received the Stu Bledsoe Memoria Award from the Washington Agriculture and Forestry Education Foundation.  Schoesler was chosen by members of the AgForestry Leadership Class 37 and honored at their graduation ceremony.  The Ritzville Republican is in his second year as Senate majority leader.  A full-time farmer in Adams and Lincoln counties, he was a member of the 10th AgForestry class.

“This recognition is as special as it gets, because I had the highest regard for Stu Bledsoe and can’t say enough good things about the AgForestry program,” said Schoesler, who served many years on legislative agricultural and natural-resources committees before his election to the Senate’s top leadership position.

Bledsoe, who died in 1988, was instrumental in founding AgForestry.  He was a longtime Ellensburg cattle rancher and four-term state representative who left the Legislature to head the Washington State Department of Agriculture in 1973.  He later became executive director of the Washington Forest Protection Association

“The AgForestry program has produced one crop after another of the leaders who are needed not only by the agriculture, forestry, and fishing industries but also the communities that depend on those industries. My two years in the program encouraged me to look for ways to make a difference where I live, and for the way of life I had chosen, and had much to do with my decision to run for a seat in the Legislature. This award really brings it full circle,” Schoesler said.

Previous recipients of the award include: Alex McGregor, The McGregor Company, Pullman; the late Dr. Walter Clore, whose work for WSU in Prosser earned him the title of father of Washington’s wine industry; Milton “Bud” Mercer, owner of Mercer Canyons, Inc., in Prosser; Ralph and Cheryl Broetje, owners of Broetje Orchards in Prescott; John Gorman, corporate forester for Simpson Timber Company in Shelton; the late Tom (TK) Mathison, founder of Stemilt Growers in Wenatchee; and Alice Parker of Royal City, a longtime member of the Columbia Basin Development League and a leading member of Grant County’s agricultural industry.

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