'Crops looking strong as harvest continues,' says Colfax Gazette 8/16/2018

Crops looking strong as harvest continues

By Will DeMarco, Whitman County (Colfax) Gazette 8/16/2018

As the 2018 harvest rolls on, growers are reporting encouraging crop numbers.

Pacific Northwest Farmers Co-op Grain Division Manager David Weitz at Colfax said the area's harvest this year is 20-30 percent better than average with 75 percent of grain harvested so far.

"It's been a fantastic harvest," Weitz said. "We have good quality wheat and huge yields."

Weitz attributed the local harvest's success to a combination of high rainfall in the fall and winter, followed by largely cool temperatures this spring and summer. He added that last week's heat wave doesn't seem to have impacted local crops.

"The wheat has not been stressed at all this year," Weitz noted.

Wheat protein is low this year, Weitz said, which he explained is good news for soft white wheat, but can adversely effect hard red winter wheat prices.

Finally, Weitz said falling numbers, referring to the stage at which protein and starch in wheat kernels break down, are not a significant worry for local growers this year.

"I'm seeing a lot of farmers with smiles on their faces," Weitz said.

Mike Bagott, assistant manager at Palouse Grain Growers, called the harvest in his neck of the woods "pretty spectacular overall" with around half of winter wheat harvested so far and spring wheat forthcoming.

"Everybody seems to be pretty happy, especially in relation to the past couple years," Bagott said.

Bagott explained that 2016's harvest was hit hard by falling numbers and 2017 saw low crop yields, but said neither of those issues concern local farmers this year. He also commented that crop prices are meeting or exceeding averages this year.

Echoing Weitz, Bagott said the local weather has cooperated this year to result in a strong harvest.

"If you think about the summer overall, it's been pretty cool," Baggot explained. "We haven't had the longer stretches of brutal heat like years past."

According to Washington Grain Commission Chief Executive Officer Glen Squires, approximately 150 million bushels of wheat are expected to be harvested across the state, up from 142.5 million in 2017.

The statewide winter wheat estimate as of Aug. 10 is 77 bushels per acre, up four from last year, and spring wheat is projected at 48 bushels per acre, which is an increase of three from the previous year.

The state average of winter wheat heads is rated at 42.3 per square foot as of Aug. 10, according to a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) report. This marks a dramatic increase from 35.7 per square foot in 2017. The USDA does not make projections on spring wheat heads.

This year's crop appears to be of high quality, too. The USDA rates 90 percent of Washington's winter wheat and 78 percent of spring wheat as either "good" or "excellent" condition.

Dennis Koong, deputy director of the USDA Northwest Field Office, said winter wheat harvest is 70 percent complete as of Aug. 10, which is down from 71 percent this time last year and below the five-year average of 77 percent. Spring wheat harvest was estimated at 35 percent, compared to 39 percent at this time in 2017 and the 48 percent five-year average.

Helped along by an usually wet fall and winter, Squires said this year's harvest outlook is positive across the board.

"It's a good crop. We've been fortunate to have good soil moisture this year, which has definitely helped," Squires noted.

According to Squires, the statewide protein content average is rated at 9.3 percent.

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After 30 years, annual Pullman festival is known for much more than its chili

After 30 years, annual Pullman festival is known for much more than its chili

By Katie Short, Moscow Pullman Daily News 8/15/2018

The National Lentil Festival marks the start of each new fall semester at Washington State University. The festival celebrates the pulses that make the Palouse different from anywhere else in the world, and over the past 30 years, it has put the little city of Pullman on the map.

George Sharp, who was the director of the National Lentil Festival from 1990 to 1998, said the idea originally came from Jim Crow, the late manager of WSU's Beasley Coliseum.

Before 1989, Sharp said Pullman hosted a Harvest Festival the third week of September.

But, he said, Pullman's annual celebration did not stand out from the nearly 3,000 other harvest festivals throughout the United States in a given year.

It was Crow who said, "Why don't we celebrate what we have here?" Sharp recalled.

And it was then the idea of the National Lentil Festival was born.

Crow always had big dreams for the festival, Sharp said. So big that in 1991, just two years after the festival got its start, Crow booked Jerry Seinfeld as the headlining entertainment for the festival.

However, no jokes about lentils were made because Seinfeld canceled his performance after his show - Seinfeld - was signed for a second season.

The cancellation made national news, Sharp said, and only generated more publicity for the Lentil Festival.

"I sent him a letter that said 'Dear Jerry, thanks for canceling' and he sent me a signed picture back that said 'Dear George, thanks for not having me' - I still have that signed picture somewhere," Sharp said.

Sharp said in 1989, he was the first person to dress as Tase T. Lentil, the official mascot of the Lentil Festival, and in 2014, he returned to Pullman to be Tase T. Lentil again for the 25th anniversary parade.

He said the Pullman Chamber of Commerce held a contest the first year of the festival and let the Pullman community name the Lentil Festival mascot. He said a Pullman first-grade teacher was the one who came up with the name Tase T. Lentil.

In 1998, Sharp left Pullman and moved to Olympia, but he said he regularly talks to parents who say their child is attending WSU and has gone to the Lentil Festival.

"It is always on the weekend kids go back to school," Sharp said.

Pullman Mayor Glenn Johnson said he has only missed one festival in 30 years and enjoys how it is used to encourage student participation in the community.

"We're as close to campus as we can get without being on campus," Johnson said.

In recent years, the Lentil Festival has grown so much it now extends from Reaney Park to the parking lot just below the WSU Steam Plant.

The festivities last for two full days and include a parade, live music, a beer and wine garden, a 5K fun run, basketball, mini golf, and softball tournaments, a lentil pancake breakfast, food demonstrations by local chefs and free lentil chili - one of the festivals main attractions.

In the 1990s, the city of Pullman was awarded the Guinness World Record for the largest bowl of lentil chili, current festival director Britnee Packwood said.

She said the bowl used to cook the chili can hold 600 gallons of lentil goodness.

The year Pullman set the world record, Johnson said the festival had so much chili they were using the radio to beg people to bring buckets.

The following year, once the record was set, the festival didn't require as much chili, he said, but people were still bringing buckets to fill.

In recent years, the festival has packaged and donated any left over chili to the Community Action Center, which in turn distributes it to the food banks, Johnson said.

"(The Lentil Festival) did two things for us: It put Pullman on the map from a festival standpoint and from a food standpoint," Sharp said.

TASE T. LENTIL WAS WINNER IN 1989 OF NATIONAL LENTIL FESTIVAL 'MYSTERY LENTIL' NAME GAME CONTEST

POSTED 8/12/2018, IMMEDIATELY BELOW IS LINK TO STORY WHICH INCLUDES LINKS TO NATIONAL LENTIL FESTIVAL RADIO COMMERCIALS FROM OVER THE YEARS  … THANKS TO ROD SCHWARTZ

https://pullmanradio.com/lentils-lentils-lentils-radio-radio-radio

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Oh, did you wonder about photo of Taste T. Lentil, mascot of Pullman's National Lentil Festival, with Garth Brooks?  Here's the story:

Country superstar Garth Brooks is performing five shows in Portland in April 2015.  This brings back memories of 1993 when Garth performed twice in Pullman.

His back-to-back sold out gigs were Saturday, Aug. 7, and Sunday, Aug. 8, 1993, in Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum at Washington State University.

Garth’s shows were the largest events ever held at the coliseum, Jim Crow, then its director, to the Moscow Pullman Daily News. The shows set the building record for attendance (11,800 for the first concert and 11,400 for the second), gross sales, and were the first sellouts in coliseum's history.

This photo is of Garth posing with Pullman's National Lentil Festival mascot Tase T. Lentil, portrayed by George Sharp, then National Lentil Festival director and later to become Pullman Chamber of Commerce executive director. It was taken in a Coliseum room before the first Pullman performance.

As a promotional item, George had post cards made of the photo and asked people in Pullman and on the Palouse to mail post cards to family and friends inviting them to the 1994 National Lentil Festival. While the post card promotion was effective, it caused confusion since some recipients thought Garth was going to perform at the 1994 festival.

To clarify, Garth did not perform at the 1993 National Lentil Festival. He was in Pullman and performed at WSU in August 1993, but not as part of the festival.

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NATIONAL LENTIL FESTIVAL’S UNSUNG HEROINE:
SHE NAMED TASE T. LENTIL

There's an unsung heroine of the National Lentil Festival.

She's Jan Gaskins.

The National Lentil Festival started in 1989. In September of that year the name of the festival's mascot was announced after a "Mystery Lentil" name game contest.

Of 204 entries, submitting the winner was Jan Gaskins, a teacher at Pullman's Jefferson Elementary School.

Hail to Jan Gaskins for naming Tase T!

Lost to time are names of all of the other entries; however one person with a long memory says two of them were "Lenny Legume" and "Yvonne Lentil."

Lewiston Trib Sept 19, 1989: PULLMAN -- School children sent off helium filled balloons,   Mayor Carole Helm gave a speech and Pullman's "mystery lentil" got a name Monday during kick-off ceremonies for the National Lentil Festival. The festival's 8-foot-tall, lentil-faced mascot was christened Tase T. Lentil which was the winning entry in the Mystery Lentil Name Game Contest. Jan Gaskins, a Jefferson elementary school teacher, won $100 for submitting the name. A total of 204 names were submitted, said Kristi Kurle, festival chairman.

Lewiston Trib Sept 13, 1989: PULLMAN -- The official festival kickoff is scheduled at 10 a.m. Monday at Sunnyside School. Local officials will speak and the winning entry in the "Mystery Lentil" name game will be announced. The costumed lentil character will appear at all lentil festival events. Name contest entries can be submitted until 5 p.m. Saturday at Balloons Etc., E. 246 Main St.; Flowers by the Laurel Tree, E. 470 Main St.; and Busters Food Emporium, E. 1005 Main St.

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