Diamond-S Farms in Colton, Wash., was homesteaded by Art Schultheis’ great-great-grandfather in 1874. After working for and with his parents in the 1980s and 90s, Schultheis and his wife, Sue, took over the farm in 1995, and they are now getting ready to hand the reins over to their own son, Kyle, who joined the family business five years ago with his wife, Stacie.
Art Schultheis (left) is the fifth generation on his family’s Whitman County farm and is getting ready to pass the farm on to his son, Kyle. The farm was originally homesteaded in 1874.
Art Schultheis’ brother, Steve (right), who lives in Oregon, was in town to lend a helping harvest hand, along with Rob Druffel, one of the Schultheis’ landlords.
“We have the sixth and seventh generations living in the farmhouse,” Schultheis said. “I think it’s neat that I can see the next generation already taking over. I could leave tomorrow, and I know it’s in good hands.”
Besides wheat, the Schultheis family grows food and malt barley, garbanzos, lentils, canola, Kentucky bluegrass seed and alfalfa. They also raise a few cows. During harvest, Schultheis’ two retired older brothers, Steve and Bob, join the team to help out.
“I love what I do. I wouldn’t want to do anything else,” Schultheis said.
Rarely does a harvest roll along without any hiccups. A particularly dense patch of weeds caused a chain on one of the headers to come loose. Eventually Art and Kyle Schultheis were able to get the chain back where it belonged.
On this day, the Schultheis team had joined forces with a neighbor, Rick Jutte, to harvest one of Jutte’s fields near Colton, known as the Sisters Place, because it was once owned by a convent of nuns.
