I arrived at the Capital Press in July of 2002, and for more than 22 years I have followed the progress of U.S. agriculture from my newsroom perch as managing editor.

It has been an honor and a privilege. Through the pages of the Capital Press I came to understand farming as a calling rather than the monolithic industry some folks insist on labeling “big ag” or “corporate ag.”

The story of agriculture is most often told through families, many of whom have dedicated generations to farming or ranching. That more than anything else stands out about agriculture. I cannot think of any other occupation with more multi-generation families involved.

The other quality that stands out is the dedication farmers and ranchers demonstrate.

Whether a farmer grows 10,000 acres of dryland wheat in eastern Washington or raises cattle on the vast rangelands of Idaho or grows 100 acres of hazelnut trees in the Oregon’s Willamette Valley, he, or she, has the same single-minded dedication to a successful crop and getting it to market.

I came to the Capital Press by a circuitous route.

I started my career in journalism in Fairbanks, Alaska, where I graduated from the University of Alaska. In 1974, while still a student, I wrote my first freelance article. It was about a new volunteer fire department forming in a nearby town called Ester. The meeting was at the local saloon, so I interviewed some of the folks, took some photos and had a beer with them before I headed back to campus to write the story.

I remember thinking that this sort of job might just be a good way to make a living, even without the beer. It’s simple enough — telling people what’s going on.

After graduation, I worked as a reporter at the local Daily News-Miner. Then I moved to Wrangell, a small timber and fishing town in southeast Alaska, where I was the entire staff of the Wrangell Sentinel. And boy howdy, did I learn a lot about logging and fishing.

Then I moved to Anchorage, where I was a reporter and then an editor of the largest newspaper in the state. While there, I covered everything from a Japan Airlines jetliner that crashed with a herd of cattle on board to a 1 million-acre wildfire west of Mount McKinley.

I moved the Juneau, the state capital, and was managing editor of the Juneau Empire for 14 years.

Tired of Alaska, and politics, my wife and I bought a small farm in southern Minnesota. Like many farmers, I had a day job publishing the weekly St. James Plaindealer and as a stock broker to help pay for our farming habit. I also published a farm-related monthly.

Along the way, I wrote many stories related to agriculture. Like the fellow in Alaska who made wine from dry milk powder. I’m not making that up. His marketing catch phrase was “Super fine wine. No hangover, no bangover!” I’ve yet to see a Northwest winery copy either the wine or the catch phrase.

A farmer in Minnesota grew wine grapes but in the winter had to lay the vines on the ground and cover them with straw to keep them from freezing.

Other stories — about one of the nation’s highest-producing herds of Jersey dairy cows, and a rancher who fed his cattle spent grain from the local ethanol plant — proliferated in farm country.

Then it was time to leave our small farm and the 80-year-old farmhouse we lived in. My wife, Patti, and I decided move to Oregon with our four boys to be closer to her parents. I went to work for the weekly newspapers in the small towns of Stayton and Silverton. I still write a column for another newspaper, called Our Town.

One day, I got a phone call from Mike Forrester, then the editor and publisher of the Capital Press. He was looking for a managing editor. With a unique blend of experience in journalism, politics, finance and farming, I fit the bill.

But I think it was my curiosity about farming that kept me at the job for more than two decades.

One thing I figured out right away is that anyone who claims to know everything about Western agriculture, doesn’t. There’s so much to it that no one can possibly know everything about farming, ranching, livestock, dairies, berries, seeds and feeds. Add in conventional, regenerative, organic and biodynamic practices, plus the various pests and diseases that pop up, and there’s too much for any one person to grasp.

Plus, researchers and other innovators are always coming up with new and better ways to farm. Agriculture is ever-changing.

And that has always kept things interesting.

As I get ready to take my leave of the Capital Press, that curiosity I have cultivated about agriculture will not go into hibernation. You’ll probably still see me poking around at the fair, scanning a field of wheat or taking a look at the latest model of tractor at an ag show.

When you do, give me a holler. I’d love to visit with you. Just as the Capital Press has become a part of me, so has agriculture.