Outpouring of help Neighbors, community come together to help Grant County family bring in the harvest

Farming can be stressful at the best of times, so when Dale Childers, a semiretired, long-time Grant/Lincoln County farmer died in August, the local community sprang into action to help the family finish harvest.

Ben McKay, a good friend of Dakota, Dale’s son, organized the harvest bee. At first, it was just Ben and a few friends, but as word spread through the community, more people started volunteering to help. McKay’s wife works at the HighLine Grain Growers elevator in Almira, Wash., so she was able to coordinate that end of the effort.

“I called Dakota and said we are just fixing to do this in a day. We planned how we wanted the fields cut and in what order,” McKay explained. “We are just so lucky to have such good friends and neighbors. We live in such a cool little area up here, and everybody looks out for everybody. Everybody was so willing to do whatever it took. We’ve all kind of been through it before.”

The community harvested approximately 1,200 acres of wheat in one day with close to 30 combines, bank-out wagons, and trucks.

Dakota had farmed with his father since 2011. Dale stopped actively farming several years ago due to worsening health, but that didn’t stop him from giving Dakota “suggestions,” although Dakota said Dale was good at letting him do what needed to be done. Dale, Dakota, and Dakota’s grandmother all lived within a half a mile of each other.

“Every morning, we’d go have breakfast at grandma’s place and talk about what we were going to do that day, planning our day out,” Dakota said. “He was a cool, calm, collected guy. We had a lot of fun together.”

Dakota said the turnout at the harvest bee reflected how highly the community thought of his father.

“It was shocking to see how everybody came together to help. I can’t say how much I appreciate how much everybody did,” Dakota said. “Everybody enjoyed my father. Everybody thought he was a best friend, a great guy.”

A celebration of life for Dale was held at the Childers’ shop in early October.