Class XXXI

Mark was tied up in meetings, so I decided to drop in on the GWATA (Greater Wenatchee Technology Alliance) holiday meeting at Tastebuds. Fresh from the media seminar, I had recruiting on my mind, so visited with Lance (Class XXI) and put the arm on Nina to consider joining. She's been through the Wenatchee Chamber's leadership program and her energy would be a good fit for Ag Forestry. She sounded enthusiastic, so I submitted her name and will follow up with her later in the year.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Wrapping up the Media session

I managed to arrive at Farm Credit Bureau without getting lost, though nobody rode with me to witness my triumph. Steve is walking wounded this morning after his fall on the ice yesterday morning, but is probably doing better than he'd expected.

Carla Savalli's presentation on the future of the media was enlightening, particulary because it seems so clear that the senior editors cannot see where the industry is headed.

Jay Penick, CEO of Farm Credit Bureau, spoke on business leadership, which was timely for me, given the fact that I'm going back to do our strategic planning session next week.

Key Learnings

• The importance of relationship-building and effective networking
  
• 
  
• The media don't necessarily know the future of their own industry.
  

Learn to format your key points in several different ways to get your message across.
If you think you've been misquoted, take the story to other people to get their opinion. If you have a genuine difference of opinion with a reporter, go directly to them instead of their editor.

Grant & Brad were our secret observers and Brad praised Kaydee for her exquisite professionalism. He was very kind to session manager, and told Juan "you could charm a monk off the mountain." Brad was so enthusiastic and if he can bring that kind of energy to his speaking, he'll be great.

An important day

Having survived my adventurous driving escapades of the previous night (and left my passengers laughing instead of screaming) I offered the brave a lift to KHQ. Rhonda was willing to try me again and Jim laughed but made sure to get into someone else's car.

The morning session included a five-minute speech by Ginny (who took the opportunity to take another run at the CAFO issue. We also briefly revisited our video interviews the previous day, then after a break launched into a panel discussion by reporters Matt Rogers of KHQ TV and John Stucke of the Spokesman Review. It's not uncommon knowledge that print media is under assault from a variety of electronic media, including the Internet, and Stucke was understandably emotional in his remarks, having just learned of his own reassigment and staff layoffs.

It is hard to imagine (if you're beyond a certain age) that there will soon come a time when newspapers can be found only in museum archives, but that day may come much sooner than we think. I'd predicted by 10 years newspapers would be gone; for some in our state, the end may well come much more quickly. This is an 800 pound gorilla in the room for so many entities who currently assume that newspapers will cover their issues despite this competition, despite drastic cutbacks in order to meet the bottom line.

Where does that leave rural towns? Where does it leave those of us who still like to read in-depth analysis of difficult or controversial issues? The Internet, TV and radio all rely on succinct sound bites and the public's impatience with lengthy discussion has already lead to drastic over-simplification of many, manhy complex issues.

If  others in the room are thinking along these lines, we (and thousands of others) may come to the conclusion that we need some forum like newspapers for in-depth issues exposition. Will it come too late for the newspapers? Who can say?

Elections

Our class meeting began after the panel. After discussion on the best way to proceed (sparked in part by Orv's five-minute speech, which was  a timely call to action urging classmates to stretch their comfort zones and run for an office), nominations were opened for the various offices. A few of us, myself included, had previously declared intent to run, but Orv's talk had, I think, the desired result in making nearly every position a bit of a horse race. The end results were as follows:

President: David B.; Vice-President: your humble scribe; Secretary: Stephanie; Treasurer: Clay; Special Projects Officer: Ginny; Board Rep: Steve B-M; Curriculum Coordinating Committee Representative: Rachel; Graduate Services Committee Representative: Juan.

It was satisfying, of course, to be elected; more so because there was so much participation in the process. I'm convinced that any of us could step forward to lead, and I nearly declined to consider an office to allow someone else to grow into the position, but heavens know I'm comfortable riding herd on groups of volunteers.

Building Rapport with the Media

I pity the speaker assigned to the after-lunch session of any seminar. Fortunately, it was fated neither to Skip, our speaker, or my class as an audience, to snooze. We had an excellent and lively lecture on developing relationships with media personnel and thereby shoring up our own credibility. He had several handouts, including one of strategic planning communications strategy, which was very handy for me, as I'm looking at our SP retreat when I return to work next Tuesday.

Fox Theatre Tour

The afternoon was most pleasantly spent: we were treated by Katherine (Class XXIX) to a tour of the gorgeously renovated Art Deco Fox Theatre, which just re-opened after a $30 million renovation. Mark would have loved it. My jaw frequently dropped at the amazing decor, and I had a special treat at the end: as our tour guide took us backstage, I recognised a very old friend from Portland, Oregon, one of the first staffers to the first board I ever participated on. I lingered for about 15 minutes to learn how she'd come to Spokane, and we exchanged information. She's had some challenges coming to the Fox, but my guess is that she'll do very well there.

Editorial Review

Our final agenda item included auditing the editorial board at the Spokesman Review to see how the subsequent day's issue was put together—a very speedy process indeed.

At last we were cut loose to our own devices. Several classmates decided to go ice-skating, others rented go-karts; my policy group decided to attack our issue over excellent hors d'oeuvres and entrees at the heavenly Blue Fish Grille (accidentally discovered yesterday when Josh and I were looking for lunch. We wrestled with the topic and how to drill down to something achievable. At this juncture, we've decided to do a little research and reconvene, perhaps with a telephone conference.

At not so long last, we returned to the hotel—at least Steve, Josh and I did— and I've enjoyed an hour's quiet time to reflect on a full day. Tomorrow, if I can manage to get there without getting lost again, we recovene at the Farm Credit Bureau for our final session of the year.

Making media make sense

A late night... we got a bit of background on media training this afternoon, then went through our media interviews, which were all pretty good. I chose fairly broad topics and while I was comfortable in front of the camera, feel I could have developed my talking points better.

We toured KHQ and watched segments of the 5 PM news broadcast, then shucked out of our work duds for jeans and headed off to Farm Credit for dinner and critique. Somebody ought to have critiqued my driving, for I got completely lost both going and coming, and thank heavens all my passengers had senses of humour about being late and didn't scream when I drove off the embankment. *sigh*

Critiques went well, though it's hard on everyone to pull late night hours. David helped lighten things up by reading a new crop of quotes from Wenatchee, and everybody started chiming in while the critique sessions went on.

We had an addition to our group: Paul (Class XXIX) joined us to do his interviews (which were pretty interesting: Yakima fishing rights) and I think he said one of his classmates completely melted down during the media segments.

Well, that's it for this long night. Tomorrow we tour the Spokesman Review and continue our media training.  Jennifer suggested "Ag Forestry on Ice" tomorrow night with an ice skating party, but some of us are really feeling the need to do some work on our policy projects. Fun may have to be deferred until later!

Never count on technology

On the eve of the media seminar in Spokane, my printer elected to quit 3/4 of the way through an innocuous job (Google maps) and left me with no way to print out the one document I really needed: the media interview sheet.

I suppose I should have looked up the old 1970's pseudoscientific biorythms instead of directions from KHQ to the hotel: yesterday I shelled out $1,300 to replace the tie rods and wheel bearings on the front of my car. The tie rods in particular were needful: there's nothing so unpleasant as having a catastrophic failure in the no-man's-land between Wenatchee and Spokane in the middle of Winter, when the weather outside is indeed frightful.

To put these frustrations into perspective, it's entirely possible that all  my classmates on the west side of the mountains are dealing with catastrophe of a much higher order.  Snow over the weekend gave way to heavy rains and sudden flooding. The major north-south corridor, I-5, was closed around Centralia after the freeway was submerged in 10 feet of water.

I sure do hope that my classmates are safe at home and on the road, and may well hear horror stories much worse than my petty concerns tomorrow.

A new crop amongst the Cold Storage

My husband (Class XXV) and I attended the grand opening of Yahoo's newest date centre in Quincy, which gave us a chance to rub shoulders with some of the folks we met while he was putting together the first datacentre here in Wenatchee. I got a chance to thank co-founder David Filo for fixing my Yahoo e-mail account last year, as well as tip Congressman Doc Hastings that my class would be seeing him in Washington DC early in 2008.

I had a nice conversation with his assistant, whose husband went through the program, and thanked Rufus (Class XXIV) again for speaking to our class last month.

Now Datacentres seem an odd crop for north central Washington, but high-tech is planting itself firmly into the local economy, drawn by low-cost power, cheap land (in Grant County at least) and an unusual non-profit called NOANet, which brokers bandwidth from the inland PUD fibre optics networks.

The challenges to this new industry are related to my speech topic last month: water. Datacentres take an enormous amount of energy to cool, owing to the heat of thousands and thousands of servers. My good friend, Pete, who helped me immeasurably with background for my water rights talk, did a fair amount of work with the city of Quincy and Yahoo to secure water rights before the plant was opened.

It will be very interesting to see how the water used to cool this and other mega-datacentres can be re-used to benefit the ag industry as well.

Hopelessly Dense

I spent some time this evening reviewing handouts for one of our last sessions on nonviolent communications. This subject has completely failed to connect with me, both then and now. About as close to "getting it" as I've gotten is the recognition of a section on "faux feelings," that is to say, judgments masquerading as feelings, in part because I can well remember some of them being used on me in the past.

One of the most egregious examples was an instance where some girlfriends and I went to the Winter Olympics in Utah, and one of our party decided that she didn't want to participate in one day's sessions. Now, the Olympics were spread out all over central Utah, and even though some of us had cell phones, it wasn't easy to stay connected. Due to the crowds, we missed our planned rendezvous, and later, the friend reported feeling abandoned, which mightily ticked the rest of us off. I hadn't fully realised at the time why I was angry, and now I know.

I guess I'll have to hold on to that nugget of learning for now, and hope that the rest of my communications style is up to par.

More on Exempt Wells

Mark (Class XXV) sent me a link to a story on how exempt wells are being abused in Kittitas County. In a nutshell, while the town of Roslyn rations its precious water (Roslyn holds a junior water right dating to 1908; the Yakama tribe holds the senior water right), McMansions in Suncadia and environs are poking wells into the aquifer, taking full advantage of the exception for wells drawing 5,000 gallons or less.

The Seattle Times calls it a "huge loophole," the very word I used in my talk. While this issue wasn't chosen as a policy project, it's a looming problem on both sides of the mountain, and developers are taking super-size advantage, with over 7,000 exempt wells drilled last year.

In other class news, David sent me a copy of his thank you note to Court (Class XXI) and I got a nice note from Ellen thanking me for being class liaison, which was an unexpected pleasure.

Showing Gratitude

Today I wrote all (or nearly all) the thank you notes for the speakers at the Wednesday afternoon session as well as a donor acknowledgement; I also received a PDF copy of Branden's thank you note to Rufus.

In the electronic age, hand-written notes really stand out, and it's a very good thing to reinforce sending them. I'm usually a terrible correspondant, but I've had really good role models, so cannot blame it on them. Among the best is Dr. Gene Sharratt, who routinely dashed off a personal note of thanks for the slightest favour.

Leadership is all about going the extra mile; it's also all about remembering the people who helped you get there. Thanks to my wonderful network of helpers!

Death March

This session was grueling: first, because illness decimated our ranks. Thisj was laid low for the three-day session with bronchitis and Friday morning Josh was hospitalised briefly. For the rest of us nominally healthy ones, Wednesday through Friday was an endurance march.

Wednesday

We convened at the Confluence Technology Center Wednesday afternoon and my husband Mark (Class XXV) gave a few introductory remarks to the class about the partnerships formed to construct the CTC. Afterwards, we toured the Chelan PUD's operations center (a string that Mark pulled on our behalf) and, if we can hold onto the information, may well help us next year when we examine the Columbia River system. He departed for a full week of his own, and Dr Glen Klock (Class II) talked about his work with Ag-Base, selling Washington products over the Internet. He hopes to establish MySpace-type pages for ag businesses to sell directly to the consumer.

After lunch, we divided into two groups to give our five-minute speeches, utilising the technology at the CTC to videotape each classmate. Note to self: when did I get so middle-aged and so fat?? Andrea (Class XV) and Vicky (Class X) were our evaluators. Andrea was very kind to us, offering both positive reinforcement and gentle suggestions for improvement.

I'd rehearsed mine many times and was comfortable with the topic, but chose to use my notes at the podium (which we were all required to stand behind, owing to the pressure-sensitive mat which focussed the camera on the speaker) and found the notes to be somewhat of a crutch. I did far better the next day when I left the notes in my book and just went for it!

My classmates all chose interesting and thought-provoking topics—even those who I knew had drafted theirs the night before! Not everyone was comfortable speaking, but everyone came from an issue or experience that they could be passionate about.

After the evaluations, we walked to the Wenatchee World offices and Rufus (Class XXIV) threw a nice little reception, showed the class a video of the paper, and talked about the generations of leadership his own family had provided.

I'd made reservations for us to eat at the Roaster, and poor Thisj had called the restaurant to order us all a round of drinks, so Steve took the initiative to send him a balloon bouquet Thursday, which we were told touched him very much. At dinner, David surprised us all be reading several funny quotes that he'd copied down in Pullman last month. Some of them were hilarious, and if this keeps up, we could well write a book at the end of two years (though we might be the only audience to fully appreciate it!

Thursday

I slept soundly that night, but my own otherwise healthy body wasn't ready for the alarm: I woke at 06:30 and drove down to the Center at about 7:30, threading my way in through all the Festival of Trees Christmas crap (don't get me STARTED on American Christmas traditions!). From 8:00 to 12:00 we gave our speeches once again for the entire group (many much improved, including myself) and broke for lunch. During lunch we voted to winnow down all the topics to the top five which would form the nucleus of our public policy work teams. Considering the difficulty, this went fairly quickly.

Here are the five projects and the teams (as it stands now)

Consumer Awareness Ad Campaign

• Clay


• Lois


• Jennifer D.


• Brad

Immigration Reform

• Shawn


• Derek


• Juan


• Rachel


• Stephanie

Transfer of Development Rights

• Orv


• Grant


• David


• Sarah


• Jennifer

Partnership between Environmentalists & Farmers

• Steve


• Ginny


• Julie


• Josh


• Sara

Wildfire Policy

• Jim


• Branden


• Matt


• Dan


• Rhonda

My group chose me to serve as temporary chair of our group until we meet again in Spokane. Once we meet again, we'll need to allow Thisj a chance to choose a group, and that might mean some reshuffling. He's a smart guy; it was very unfortunate that he was deprived of the chance to go through this session (as we were deprived of his contributions) but I am sure he will be able to get up to speed when he recovers.

After lunch, Ellen gave the first part of her lecture on working effectively with others, then her friend Liv led a session on nonviolent communications. I'm sure that there is value to the subject, however. I (and perhaps others) were so tired after the mental anxiety of the speech session) that I struggled mightily to remain engaged. If Liv hadn't gotten us up for a couple of exercises, I probably would have curled up in the corner and snored.

Last on the agenda Thursday afternoon was a panel discussion with Russ (Class XI) and Sarah on the process of establishing the Entiat Watershed Plan. Again, I suspect many of us struggled to give them our full attention. Please. Must. Sleep!

Thank the gods, a break at last, and Rhonda, Ginny and I walked down the Avenue to Palmer shoes, so Rhonda could replace her beloved and worn-out Halflinger clogs. The fresh cool air was a tonic, much-needed, before we returned to the bowels of the Center for the alumni reception. Jennifer said Friday as we were reflecting on key learnings that networking was the last thing on her mind, however, she established a key contact with Ron (Class XVII) which will be of real benefit to her. The value of the networking sessions cannot be overstated, for often they are the most lasting benefits of the Ag-Forestry program. It was nice to see Erin (Class XXIX) again, and she gave me her Washington DC tour book and introduced me to her husband.

Our dinner speaker, nicely introduced by Rachel, was Jon Wyss, Government Affairs Director at Gebbers Farms. Jon's topic was immigration reform, already eloqently illustrated in Rachel's five-minute speech, but there was much to consider about the problems we face if the nation does not effect meaningful reform.

Friday

I'll just sleep when I'm dead...actually, I slept better, but still was feeling an energy deficit as I downed my coffee and headed off for another full day. We assembled in our new policy groups and Ellen led us through more exercises on working effectively, including a pretty funny role-playing process where we each were required to take on the positions of special interests and hammer together some ground rules for a fictional watershed planning process. Poor Shawn: he was chosen to facilitate and we were brutal to him; he wanted to give up halfway through! It was a valuable exercise, though.

We broke for lunch and dined with the board (outgoing and incoming members) and I had an interesting conversation with Trustee Terry Gilmore, a forestry consultant. We enjoyed a nice pep-talk from Court, (Class XXI) the incoming president. After lunch, we reflected on some of the key learnings from the three days and Clay gave us a glimpse of the media seminar which will be in *gulp* three weeks. We've also looked ahead, a tiny bit, to the Washington DC trip.

As eager as I was to finish for the day, I felt a bit sorry to see everyone go. We're a wonderful group. I cannot wait to see where we take ourselves next, so long as we can survive the fun. I'll probably need every minute of the next three weeks to rest up!

Hay's in the Barn

And the ducks are in a row, to use a couple of hackneyed phrases. I've practiced my speech so many times I bore myself, and boredom's a far better feeling than terror. I've communicated with some classmates who are only just composing their speeches.

They're the ones that my husband figures won't be listening when he gives his presentation tomorrow afternoon. If my classmates aren't too preoccupied with the speech sessions, my guess is that they'll find the technology center pretty amazing, from the bells and whistles of the PUD's operations center to the work that Dr Glen Klock (Class II) does selling ag over the Internet.

How persuasive?

I've spent the last week practicing my five-minute speech on water law revision. Now I knew nothing about the subject before crafting five pages on the need for reform, but that mustn't stand in the way of swaying one's audience! I've had some excellent advice on the subject and my only fear is going over time, which consistently happens by about 5-10 seconds on read-through.

Mark and I attended the annual Auction Gala in Seattle last Friday, and it was a real pleasure to see at least five of my classmates in attendance. We felt lucky to be eating: a glitch resulted in Shari running around to find us a bid card and seats at one of the tables (thanks to the Washington Potato Commission and classmate Matt for hosting us) so we didn't have a chance to bid on any of the silent auction items. If we go next year, we'll try to be better prepared too: the dessert auction alone raised 28,000 for the Foundation. It's marvelous to see how much support exists for the Ag Forestry Foundation— and that means support for my classmates and I as well as the staff. Running a non-profit, big or small, is always a financial roller-coaster.

In just a few days the whole class will be here in Wenatchee, and I'm still running around to find a place for us to dine Wednesday night after our long day of speechifying, as well as running my portion of Wednesday's program and preparing for my own speech. I darned near got a ticket coming home a couple of weeks ago: it was nearly midnight and I was mentally rehearsing introducing my husband, who will be speaking at our first session. Damned if East Wenatchee didn't come up all of a sudden, and I still had the cruise control on 60! A State Patrol car pulled me over right away, and I confessed to woolgathering. Fortunately, there're probably more drunken fish to fry at midnight on a Saturday than a distracted speech-maker. Thankfully, he let me off, and I've learned to pracice my speech delivery at home or in the office rather than behind the wheel.

Studying Water

I've been thinking ahead to the next session, and it's time to choose a topic to deliver a five-minute speech, which might be used to develop our policy working groups. There are certainly many issues to choose from, and since I'm no expert, it's time to study up.

I spent most of the day reading up on water issues in Washington state, and there are some sobering statistics to ponder. The last decade has been a dry cycle: lower than average snowpack in the winter months, numerous wildfires and alarmingly shrinking aquifers spell dry times ahead.

53 North Cascade glaciers have completely disappeared since the 1950s, and many of the remaining glaciers have lost between 18 and 32% of their volume since 1983. Most of the North Cascade glaciers are in places so remote that few are aware of them, however, these icy natural reservoirs contain nearly 30% of our region's total water supply, releasing 230 billion gallons of water during the summer months!

What do these numbers mean? Paired with the record growth that we've been seeing here locally, there may well be a time when there isn't enough water to meet all demands. Currently, there are 7,087 water rights on file with the state, excluding reservoirs and power. These water rights represent an existing demand of over eight million acre feet.

Water rights in Washington state are based on the doctrine of prior appropriation. In other words, the first person in line has priority over all others who come later. During water shortages, senior water rights holders have the right, under existing law, to take their full water allotment—even if this leaves junior water rights holders without water.

Water is sacred here in the arid west, and people have come to blows over it in the past century. If projections for the glaciers are accurate, we may be in a world of trouble—a world without water.

All Eyes and Smiles

The journey has begun and, as I suspect is the case for many classes before, the reality of the experience is ever so much more than can be put into words, though the title, taken from classmate Stephanie's description of how we all met that first day, is pretty apt.

Now, at last I am able to sit down and reflect on the first seminar, entitled Leadership, Communication, and Vision, held October 10-12 in Pullman.

Wednesday

I slept poorly during the nights leading up to Wednesday, and awoke at 5 AM Wednesday to a classic nervous tension dream: I dreamt it was 10:30 and I'd frittered away the entire morning, forgetting I'd promised to carpool with local classmates at 7 AM down at the port offices. As much as I'd prefer not arising at such an hour, it was a relief to find that yes, it was only a dream. I showered, dressed, packed most everything I'd planned to take (though the make-up brush case stayed in the bathroom, and I'd learn to apply makeup with a combination of paper tissues and Q-tips during the week).

I drove into the port parking lot just as Dayle was arriving for work, and my first riding buddy showed up: Jim hadn't indicated that he'd be joining us, but was glad, I think, that there was room in my car, for his pick-up truck was jammed full of the detritus of his life. Soon afterwards, Grant's wife dropped him off (he too was glad of the ride, for his wife was off for a meeting elsewhere). Finally Julie showed up. She'd gotten her wires crossed and was waiting at the Port's old offices, but was well prepared: she fired up her laptop and found my e-mail with the proper directions.

Car packed and ready, we headed out, talking pretty much nonstop until Othello. Grant is new to Washington, so I pointed out various geographic features along the way.

We arrived in Pullman at around 10:45 and checked in to our hotel on the outskirts of town. My roommate, Rachel, was already there. She must have left Brewster punishingly early, for she'd been at the hotel since 9:30.

The hotel had a shuttle, and a local member of a previous Ag-Forestry class was kind enough to run us up to the campus. As many times as Mark and I have been through Pullman, I've never stepped onto the campus, and it's pretty amazing.

We had lunch at 11:30 and plunged right into the agenda, which include a welcome address by Dr Elson Floyd, the new president of WSU. Everyone was, I think, deeply impressed by Dr Floyd and his "out of the box" vision for his university. One phrase he used which may go into the class lexicon is "culture eats strategy," in other words, the best planning can go for naught if you aren't dialed into the accepted norms of the target audience.

We learned about the history of the program and did some ice-breaker exercises which got us learning more about our classmates. That afternoon we had a little wine reception at WSU, then returned to our hotel for dinner and an etiquette session which was fun, funny and humbling (I was so SURE the knife and fork went to 10 o-clock and 2 o'clock on the plate when you're done!).

Thursday

Thursday morning we had a session on developing public policy by Don Schwerin, who was Speaker Tom Foley's legislative liaison. It was excellent, but left some of us with as many questions about the complexity of the process as we began, but ultimately, I think we'll learn by doing.

Everyone enjoyed the next speaker, who gave us some essential listening tools, and this is always an area where I feel I need improvement. Lesson one: don't check your e-mail while talking to somebody on the phone!

After lunch, we had our group and individual class photos, then walked around the campus in the lovely October sunshine (my roommate bought me an ice cream cone) and met at the art museum for a docent-led tour on a very good photo exhibit.

That evening we were on our own, so most of us walked down the hill into town and had a so-do Mexican dinner followed by a really REALLY nice evening at a wine bar in the former Pullman post office, beautifully renovated. Two of our classmates are from Columbia Crest/ St Michelle winery, and treated us to a couple of bottles of good wine, and, even better, told us all about the process and their goals. Juan, the winemaker, is from Argentina, and the second bottle he bought us was from his home area of Mendoza.

Friday

Friday we got the results of our Myers-Briggs tests and talked about personality types (We are all over the map, with 15 of the 16 types) Mine, if you're wondering, is ENTP) then wrapped up with what we will be doing in Wenatchee in November, which was my part of the program. Each member of the class takes turns as the emcee, greeting speakers, keeping the agenda running, etc, and one person is chosen from the area where we meet to serve as the overall coordinator. That'll be my role next month as everyone comes to Wenatchee to deliver a five minute speech on a potential policy issue (everyone's quaking in their shoes over this).

Looking Ahead

Mark and I have talked much since I returned last night (and he deserved some face time, for his birthday was yesterday). He can be a great resource to me in framing my 5-minute speech, and has made several good suggestions about possible topics and people to contact. I'd like to choose my topic, get some background research done, and get started writing and practicing fairly soon. He's also talked some about the media seminar, and what it will be like to have reporters lying in the weeds to trip us up. That is, I'm afraid, exactly how the media operate, and it's better to know going in than stammer and stutter while the tape is rolling.

Tick, Tick, Tick

Counting down the hours until we leave for Pullman. I've got my bag packed and about all I'll have to do tomorrow morning is throw my clothes on and go. I've talked a couple of classmates into carpooling down, which will more than alleviate the boredom of the drive between here and Pullman.

I haven't had much time during the past two weeks to think about the first session: in the Amazingly Good Timing Department, our son came home from Iraq for two weeks and departed last Saturday morning. We didn't do a great deal while he was here, besides feed him and love him. He wanted to be a home-body, and after nine solid months of work the likes of which none of us have to face, he had more than earned it.

And now my own adventure begins. There will be long days and probably some longer nights during the next two years, but I am sure we will all rise to the challenge.

Leadership, Communication, Vision

Our agenda for the first session in Pullman came this afternoon. I printed everything off and stuck it into my notebook, then hustled off to a social at Tom's house (Class XXV) before hustling off from there to a night meeting.

Now I have time to review the agenda (and see that my part comes at the end, introducing the seminar in Wenatchee). A good deal of the October sessions take place in the Center for Undergraduate Education on the WSU campus. It will be interesting to find my way around the campus, for as many times as I've been through Pullman, I've almost never been on the campus. A fair amount of the agenda is devoted to introducing concepts such as leadership, and setting the ground rules. Nota Bene: wondering where the CUE is? click here. It's just off Stadium Way.

We're staying at the Hawthorne Inn & Suites, and Rachel is my roommate. I ought to write her and apologise ahead of time for being a middle aged, overweight woman who snores. Or perhaps I should just pack earplugs for each roommate. I travel with them on the motorcycle, and sure have used them to survive noisy nights myself.

I think I am ready for this. I may not have a great deal of time to agonise over it during the next two weeks, for we're expecting our Marine son home on R&R from Iraq. He couldnt' have planned the leave better to coincide with Ag-Forestry, though he has told us little of the details of his trip.

If I'm lucky, I will be able to persuade some of my local classmates to carry a bag down and, if the weather's fair and I get a new chain and sprocket installed on my motorcycle, I can ride the 919 to Pullman. It's not a terribly exiting ride (outside of the Palouse, which is God's country on two wheels) but it's always more of an adventure to ride than drive and there's plenty of time to reflect.

Acquaintance Building Blocks

I have just returned from a very pleasant hour with one of my local classmates, Julie, who met me at McGlinn's. She works for the Salmon Recovery Board (in fact, she had to return to work while I returned home), an entity charged with re-establishing viable salmon habitat. For more on this mission, which affects much of the Pacific Northwest, visit http://www.ucsrb.com/.

Julie is a perfectly amiable, charming young woman, fond of theatre, reading, hiking, biking and travel—in fact, she is leaving soon for a backpacking vacation through central Europe with the wife of one of my husband's classmates (networking layer upon layer!) and I am quite envious, for I haven't been back to Europe since 1994.

I am so pleased that we had the chance to get together in a relaxed setting, for I have the sense that our monthly seminars will be fairly intense. I really enjoy the chance to reflect on experiences. Good conversation with one to three people is a most satisfying way of sythesizing intense experiences, and I hope there will be more such meetings.

At Rotary Randy tantalized me with where our international trip might be—and where it likely won't. Class XXIX is going to Russia next January,and while I told Randy there are very few places I wouldn't care to travel, Russia in January, well, that might just be one of 'em. He tempted me with India, which certainly would be more attractive. Its economy is emerging, as anybody who's attempted to call customer service can vouch for. True, it's halfway around the world, a long haul indeed, but I survived the flight to Japan with a few books, and getting there wouldn't scare me off. What a wonderful opportunity that would be, but there's no way of knowing at this early stage.

All in good time, as they say.

Looking Behind, Looking Ahead

My husband (Class XXV) and I met one of his fellow classmates and her husband tonight at McGlinn's, and made a date to see the new home of another classmate next Tuesday. I can't say a great deal of the discussion rolled down memory lane, which was fortunate (for me at least). The whole point of Ag-Forestry really seems, after graduation, to implement what one has learned in your community and chosen vocation.

I'm still noodging my future classmates to connect before Pullman, though it may be a challenge, since harvest is in full swing. Well, if it happens, great, if not, there'll be two full years to learn each other's idiosyncracies—and we all have 'em! Fortunately for Mark, his classmates were pretty congenial.

There's absolutely no way of knowing at this stage about Class 30. Let's see what we do know: there are 25 members, at least 10 women, or just under half of the class. All except me have direct ties to agriculture, forestry or fisheries. There are seven members from SW Washington, three from Puget Sound, six from north central Washington, two from the Yakima-Goldendale area, seven from SE Washington (my family orchards and ranch were in this area before the Little Goose Dam inundated the lands) and none from the Spokane area.

We're all a great unknown at this point.

Start Me Up

This evening my notebook came from the Ag-Forestry Foundation, which, even more than the initial acceptance letter, makes my acceptance into the program more real—more tangible.

My husband, Mark (Class XXV) is, if anything, even more excited than I am about my acceptance, and I certainly have seen what the leadership program has done for him, for his classmates, and many people I know around north central Washington.

In a few weeks I will go down to Pullman and meet my classmates. I've sent an e-mail to the five candidates from my area suggesting a casual get-together beforehand, and have gotten a couple of responses. I am the only one in my class not directly tied to agriculture, forestry, fisheries or viticulture, however, few people who live and work in Chelan county are untouched by the ag industry, and I feel that this will be an essential addition to my store of knowledge.

At this stage, it all lies ahead: the speeches, the policy development, the travel and the attendant stresses of functioning at a higher level.

I can't wait. I just can't wait.