La Conner Rotary serves food for thought at merchants and farmers dinner

Outgoing four-term Mayor Ramon Hayes cited three major challenges La Conner faces in the decade ahead in remarks at the annual Rotary Club merchants and farmers dinner at Maple Hall Monday night.

Turns out, the hosts have a time-honored three-word blueprint for meeting those pending multi-million dollar tests.

Service above self.

That has been their credo since the club was chartered in August 1945. And it reflects the sense of teamwork Hayes says is needed to address pressing water, sewer and flood management infrastructure demands.

It was teamwork, he pointed out, between two unlikely partners that helped make the waterfront boardwalk a reality midway through his tenure at Town Hall.

Hayes related how state political rivals Mary Margaret Haugen and Barbara Bailey each lent their clout to the more than $2 million project.

"To say these two ladies didn't like each other," Hayes recalled, "would be quite an understatement."

Hayes supported Haugen, a Democrat, in her unsuccessful state senate re-election bid against Bailey because of the incumbent's strong voice in Olympia for boardwalk funding. As senator, Bailey proved equally supportive.

"Barbara Bailey welcomed us into her office and asked us what it would take to complete the boardwalk," Hayes recalled.

The rest, as they say, is history.

"If it were up to me," said Hayes, "I would name it the Haugen-Bailey Boardwalk. They were able to set aside their differences on behalf of the town."

La Conner Rotary President Adam McGarity set the tone of cooperation and community resiliency in introductory comments as the large audience, which included Skagit County Commissioner Ron Wesen, sat down to a meal catered by La Conner Seafood & Prime Rib House.

"We support one another and serve the community around us," McGarity said of his fellow Rotarians, then lauded both merchants and farmers – the former for adding to the unique character of La Conner and the latter for their stewardship of neighboring ag land.

McGarity listed his club's multi-tiered commitment to public service, particularly in the areas of health and education, which often is seen in the form of rolled-up sleeves and active volunteerism.

"Our club is about much more than writing checks," McGarity insisted. "We work."

He stressed that it's a work ethic shared by La Conner's farmers and merchants.

"You do a lot for the community," said McGarity. "We do a lot for the community. We have a lot in common."

La Conner Superintendent of Schools Will Nelson spoke first. He thanked Rotarians for their support of the district, which he said has adopted new math curricula in grades K-12 and has put in place a five-year plan built around educational equity with an emphasis on social-emotional learning.

Implementing programs such as universal design learning and professional learning communities are fostering increased student achievement and academic success, he said.

"I see the hard work put in every day by everyone in the district," he said.

Nelson conceded that La Conner Schools, like Town Hall, must brace for difficult challenges ahead, most notably a declining student enrollment. The K-12 student population at La Conner has fallen from about 700 in the early 2000s to an estimated 490 for the 2023-24 school year.

"Enrollment drives our funding from the state," said Nelson. "Hopefully, we'll see some bills passed in the legislature that benefit our school district."

Asked what can be done to add more students, Nelson said the district is actively recruiting K-8 students in Conway and developing strategies to retain La Conner students who might choose to transfer.

He said the school administration has developed and dispersed a district-wide survey seeking input for prioritizing programs.

Third-generation farmer Dave Hedlin, who with his wife, Serena Campbell, helped found Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland over 30 years ago, said that while agriculture is beset with its own set of challenges, farmers here are blessed with some of the best soils in the world.

Like all endeavors, farming must constantly adapt to meet changes in the marketplace, he said. Hedlin recounted how Skagit Valley and the La Conner flats have through the generations shifted their points of emphasis from oats and cabbage seed to peas and now potatoes.

"My grandpa used to say the best two years in agriculture are 1918 and next year," Hedlin quipped, sharing one of his trademark 'Dave-isms.'

Nineteen-eighteen was a banner year for local agriculture, he said, because it coincided with World War I, when Europe's farm fields were torn asunder by deadly trench warfare.

Hedlin spoke about how farmers build climate resilience into their operations, a subject he knows is fraught with complexities.

"Everybody," Hedlin said, "wants to fix something with a sound byte."

But farmers don't have that luxury.

"On the farm," he said, "everything you do has a couple intended consequences and about 40 unintended consequences."

University of Washington climate expert Dr. Guillaume Mauger noted he came here for a regional design charette in 2017 that addressed sea level rise, among other climate issues, more than five years before the Dec. 27 saltwater flood here.

The design charette brought together a wide range of stakeholders – scientists, environmentalists, business owners, farmers and academics – who put their heads together to craft practical short-term and more outside-the-box long-range plans to combat ongoing threats from Mother Nature. It encouraged focused and sustained study of climate factors,

"A lot of good work came from it," he said. "Those ideas are still in place."

Mauger presented data indicating that 100-year sea level rise events could present themselves twice per decade by mid-century. One-hundred-year river flooding is expected to become a 22-year occurrence, studies project.

But on this night, with king tide season having passed and spring in the offing, it was a celebration by Rotarians of community goodwill that flooded Maple Hall.