Shake the hand that feeds you

Quincy holds farmer awareness day

QUINCY - The sun reflected on Quincy Saturday as residents reflected the importance of the town's agricultural impact.

The 27th annual Farmer-Consumer Awareness day commenced with a morning parade through downtown Quincy.

At the parade 7-year-old Brian Hauff enjoyed retrieving candy thrown from a float.

"Tons of candy," he said.

It is one of his favorite things of the day. His mother Angela Hauff enjoyed a different part.

"(It) always has that good small hometown community feel to it. You can always come home and everybody still knows your name and waves at you. You always feel welcome even if you don't live here anymore," said Angela Hauff.

She is a 1991 Quincy High School alumnus visiting from East Wenatchee.

"I think it's important to buy local produce from our local farmers. We need to keep it here in the community so the money stays here," she said.

Tracy Rigby attended awareness day and brought her 4-year-old son Drew to enjoy the event.

"I think it's neat that we can show the importance that agriculture has to the whole nation," said Tracy Rigby.

After watching dancing horses and other parade highlights, the crowd moved to Quincy High School where the parade concluded and much of the celebration occurred.

At the produce bins was David Rossing, retired school administrator and 25-year Kiwanis member. Rossing was on the original farmer-consumer committee and said the produce sale has occurred about as long as he's been involved. He's seen the Farmer-Consumer Awareness Day expand throughout its history.

"It has increased in participation over the years and we have people from the west side that come back every year," he said.

"It's a community pulling together to demonstrate what's here. You know you drive by Interstate 90 and you don't see much, a field or two here or there. It doesn't look like there's much, but there is a tremendous amount of ground and farm in production with modern methods going on and you just barely scratch the surface when you drive through, but when you … take the back roads and wander around you see lots going on," Rossing added.

Rotary Club member Lars Larson, helping prepare barbecue beef sandwich meals at the organization's fund-raiser, took time to share his thoughts on the annual event.

"(It's) just a great ambassador to the rest of the state, and the area, to what we do here, so that's probably the biggest thing that the farmer-consumer does," Larson said.

Cindy Harris, a former Quincy resident visiting from Wenatchee with her mother Betty Norman, estimated she's attended for approximately eight years.

They said they like to return to the area and see old friends and stock up on food.

"We usually go home with potatoes and corn. We always go home with some produce. We look forward to it every year," Norman said.