Beef at the WA Capitol

OLYMPIA – A big grill billowed smoke just in front of the steps of the Capitol Building in Olympia Thursday. A line of hungry visitors didn’t let the rain get them down as they looked forward to a traditional Beef Day steak.

Every year the Washington Cattlemen's Association holds Beef Day on the Hill. For the event, the Cattlemen’s Association grills tri-tip steak to slice and serve on sandwiches. This year, AB Foods donated 582 pounds of tri-tip from their Toppenish location for Beef Day.

“This is kind of the way we figure it; the average tri-tip weighs about 3.5 pounds and you figure eight to 10 people per tri-tip,” said Second Vice President of the Washington Cattlemen’s Association Floyd Lewis.

By his explanation, they have enough tri-tip to feed 1,300 to 1,600 people. That’s a lot of beef. But it's also probably not the biggest they’ve ever served for Beef Day.

“The biggest we’ve ever done here is we fed 1,600 people,” Lewis said. “The line was half a mile long.”

Beef Day came along on the same day Senate Bill 5439, sponsored by Sen. Judy Warnick (R-Moses Lake), was signed into law by Governor Jay Inslee. The new law removes a $20 call-out fee for veterinarians or field livestock inspectors and moves annual reporting from September to November of each year. The goal is to generally make administrative work on a ranch more efficient, Warnick said in a press release.

“The state’s livestock identification efforts are continually improving, and my proposal will help the sustainability and fairness of this important program,” said Warnick. “I think the program will operate better for producers and the public by removing unnecessary fees and making some administrative changes.”

Along with tri-tip, the Dairy Farmers of Washington provided milk boxes and cookies and cooked asparagus was donated by Charlie Brown, Co-Founder of Cascade Government Affairs, on behalf of Washington asparagus growers. There were also many others behind the scenes.

“The Washington CattleWomen, we’re just big supporters of a lot of the responsibilities on the Cattlemen’s Association to prepare and organize the day and then we get to come over and help serve the beef,” said Kady Porterfield, President of Washington CattleWomen. “These guys cook up delicious beef and then we get to serve it all together. This is just a great partnership event that is fun for all to get together.”

The event was scheduled for Noon but people started lining up by 10:30 a.m. Food was served early and wrapped up by 1 p.m. Smiles were abundant as people waited and happily received food. Lots of legislators joined to get their steak sandwiches and mingle with the Cattlemen’s Association representatives. This included local legislators including Warnick, and Representatives Tom Dent (R-Moses Lake) and Alex Ybarra (R-Quincy).

The event allows farmers and ranchers to build relationships with legislators and lobbyists and educate the public on local food production.

Beef Day is a very popular event. People over and over again were heard telling the Cattlemen that Beef Day is their favorite day at the Capitol. Jeff Keane, President of the WCA, along with Floyd said people would see their cowboy hats weeks before the event and ask them when Beef Day was and tell them how excited they were for it.

“Like Floyd said, we were here six weeks ago for Boots on the Hill,” said Keane. “One of the guys, we first got here that morning, we happened to be walking in the O'Brien Building, he goes ‘When’s Beef Day?’ – He saw the (cowboy) hats.”

Rebecca Pettingill may be reached at rpettingill@columbiabasinherald.com.

Washington Cattlemen’s Association

1301 N Dolarway Road

Ellensburg, WA 98926

www.washingtoncattlmen.org

frontdesk@wacattle.org

509-925-9871