Speaker urges farm bureau to focus on positives

Golladay takes over presidency from Bates

GRANT COUNTY - Members of the Grant County Farm Bureau heard a positive message from a self-described "unorthodox" speaker.

World weightlifting champion and motivational speaker Rick Metzger spoke before the bureau's annual meeting Thursday evening at the Moses Lake Convention Center.

Metzger held up his own membership cards to Ohio and Minnesota farm bureaus, and described his childhood on a farm in Texas.

He told an emotional story about his friendship with a teenager afflicted with muscular dystrophy, who inspired Metzger by remaining positive in spite of the tribulations he faced.

He peppered his speech with humor, and called several members of the meeting to the front of the room, handing each large sheets of paper and asking them to close their eyes as they listened to his instructions on tearing from the sheet.

When they were done, each participant had made a different shape in their pieces of paper, but Metzger said only he had been the failure, having provided instructions each individual heard and interpreted differently.

Metzger urged those in attendance to remain positive.

"It amazes me when I'm in airports, people who constantly live in a gloom and doom society, people who want to talk about all the negative things," he said. "Because people are creatures of habit, who live for this negativeness, people constantly want to be around that stuff, and I refuse to allow that to be a part of my life."

Misery breeds misery, Metzger told the audience, and sometimes a change has to be made in order to be positive.

"If every one of us in this room who are involved in agriculture won the lottery tomorrow for $10 million, I'll guarantee you, if the truth be known, you would make change happen," he said. "But the change would be, you might make updates to what you're doing, you might buy a new piece of farm equipment, you might buy some more livestock. But you know what? You'd still continue to farm. Because that's what you are, and that's what you love to do."

Bureau members also heard from Property Crimes Investigator Jay Atwood of the Grant County Sheriff's Office, who provided an update on wire theft.

"We as a group of folks can get together, share information and at least make it harder for bad guys," Atwood said.

He thanked farm bureau members for their support of legislation increasing the difficulty of thieves profiting from stolen wire.

"If the sheriff's office has notified recycle companies … somebody on my little list is a convicted thief in this county or anywhere else in the state of Washington, he cannot sell. He just stole from your circle. He can't go to a reputable recycler and sell the aluminum from your irrigation pipes," Atwood said.

Atwood advised residents to call the secret witness line at 509-754-6061.

"The key to this whole thing is not only just prevention and knowing what we own, knowing how to take care of it and being able to identify what my property was in the first place," he said. "But it's information shared amongst you folks. If something is out of the ordinary, if something doesn't look right in your fields at night or in your neighborhoods during the day, let somebody know."

Aaron Golladay was elected to the presidency during the annual meeting. Golladay takes over for John Bates, who held the position for the last four years and for two years prior to his most recent term. Greg Rathbun was elected bureau vice president.

Golladay expects labor and animal identification issues to be prevalent in the coming year.

"We just snuck by on our labor issues this year and next year, I think the labor issue's going to get worse; we're going to see a labor shortage if immigration doesn't get fixed," he said. "As always, we're getting ready to go into a political season and we now have a Republican candidate out there and a Democratic candidate for governor, so that's going to become a very hot topic of discussion."