Quincy Chamber honors long-time business man

QUINCY – Rex Morgan, who drove into Quincy in November of 1953 with a bed and mattress on top of his car, was the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award for 2012 from the Quincy Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Morgan came to town to found Morgan's 5&10. In 1986 he and his son Warren and the Walton family founded Double Diamond Fruit Packing. His family was instrumental in the development of the community's private Quincy Valley School.

Morgan was honored at the Chamber Awards and Installation Banquet, which is held every other year. This year's edition was held earlier this month.

“The awards and installation banquet provides the Quincy Valley Chamber of Commerce with the opportunity to thank the business community for all they do to support the valley and the Chamber,” Chamber Director Karen Vizena said.

“It gives us an opportunity to honor the businesses and individuals who have worked so hard to make the Quincy Valley the amazing place we all call home.”

This year’s other award winners are: Teacher of the Year – Sara Tuttle of Quincy Valley School; Volunteer of the Year – Chet Pedersen and Business of the Year – Central Bean Company.

The banquet also affords Chamber members an opportunity to recognize their board of directors. The board is made up of 13 individuals representing a diverse cross-section of the business community.

The Chamber installed Todd Wurl of Work Source as president for 2013 and said goodbye to Mara Jacobs, who will remain on the executive board as past president. Nichol Knebel was announced as President Elect for 2014.

New board members for 2013-2015 are: Lori Williamson of Gillespie Eye Care, Jamie Nguyen of CliftonLarsonAllen and Nick Akins of Akins Harvest Foods.

Morgan, who was born in Omak in 1928 and raised there, has always been known as a worker. He had his first job at 12 years of age making wooden apple boxes.

It took Morgan most of that summer to make 2,000 boxes for which he was paid 60 cents a hundred. He earned $12 that summer and spent it on a used Elgin bicycle.

After high school, Morgan attended WSU and met his future wife, Laurel. They graduated in 1951 and married in February of 1952, just before he was sent overseas for military service.

Morgan had received a commission from the ROTC. As spouse of a newly minted officer, Laurel was afforded free passage to France, his new assignment.

Morgan was stationed at a NATO base about 100 miles south of Paris, where he served as a manpower management officer while his taught school at the air base school.

After Rex's discharge in July of 1953, the Morgans returned to Omak, where he worked in a variety store for about six weeks. Then the Morgan's moved to Quincy. They arrived late one afternoon with their bed and mattress strapped to the roof of their Ford.

The Morgans threw the bedding down on the space they had rented, tied the doors shut from the inside (the building was not finished and there was no lock) and went to bed. The building contractor, Westover and Hope, arrived the next morning to find the doors tied shut from the inside.

Morgan's 5&10, located where CliftonLarsonAllen now stands, was a variety store at first. It evolved into a junior department store. It had its ups and downs.

Their first day’s sales, when the Morgans opened in early December, were more than $300. They were elated. One month later, the Morgans hit their low with sales of $10.57 on Jan. 4, which was Rex's birthday.

In March of 1962, the Morgans occupied a new building, the present Vordahl location. In 1978, they sold the business to the Vordahls and concentrated on developing the farm unit they had bought on Babcock Ridge.

The farm had 15 acres of apples. The rest was open ground which, over time, was planted to apples, cherries and apricots.

In 1986, Double Diamond Fruit Packing was started. Apples were packed for about six weeks, and about 20 people were employed.

Today Double Diamond packs fruit 12 months of the year with a crew that varies from 100 to 142 people, packing apples, apricots and cherries. The packing plant, located on Highway 28, has been expanded 12 times and now packs about 1.5 million boxes of apples. The cherry facility was opened in 2012.

Morgan's activities include past president of Rotary, vice president of the Chamber’s planning commission, civil service board and many years on the merchants committee and church board.

“Quincy is our home—which we are very happy about,” he said. “And the success I may have had would not have happened without my wife Laurel’s involvement. For her, family was and is first. She made it happen.”

Teacher of the Year Sara Tuttle started life at Quincy Hospital. She was raised on a farm, the middle sister of three girls. She has never wanted to do anything but teach.

Following graduation from Quincy High School, Sara attended WSU, where she received her teaching degree. She did her student teaching in the Kent/Renton area.

Tuttle did substitute teaching in that area for a period of time before moving to Vancouver in 2001. While in Vancouver, she taught 1st and 2nd grades.

When Tuttle came back to Quincy in 2007, she started a job search but most of the school districts were not hiring. It was her good fortune that the Morgans were in the planning stages of developing Quincy’s first private school. She secured a position with the school and has risen in the ranks to Headmaster.

Volunteer of the Year Chet Pederson was raised on a farm in the Ellensburg area. Following high school graduation, he attended WSU and received a degree in agronomy and soil chemistry.

Pederson found a job offering agronomic consulting services in the Yakima and Kittitas Valleys, and it wasn’t long before the operation opened an office in Quincy.

Pederson was instrumental in forming the downtown beautification group that is responsible for the planting and care of the flowers seen blooming each year.

Pederson has served on the Chamber board of directors and served as the Chamber president in 1980. In 1995 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award. He is actively involved with the Washington State Potato Commission research council and is a member of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

It was while Pederson was Chamber president in 1980 that Dennis Higashiyama came to him with the idea of creating an event to showcase farmers and educate the general public on how their food arrives in the grocery stores. He went to work to form a committee and FCAD was born.

It can be argued that Pederson's hard work and determination has sustained Farmer Consumer Day for the past 32 years. He works tirelessly all year long to prepare for the event.

Central Bean Company, Inc. was founded in 1983 with just a handful of employees and has grown to more than 24 full-time employees. Central Bean is the only bean processor in the United States to be certified by the Food Alliance Group. The FAG looks at management practices, sustainable agricultural practices and good environmental stewardship.

Central Bean Company, Inc.’s facility uses an identity preserved system. Each grower’s dry beans are stored in small bins and conditioned separately. This allows the monitoring of quality standards of each grower, each field and even each load delivered for conditioning.

Owner Tom Grebb is a member of the National Dry Bean Council. He is also involved in Rotary International, having served as president in 2009. Grebb was also a member of the Jaycees and served as a Volunteer Fire Fighter for 25 years.