A harvest of community

ENDICOTT – Not many days of harvest begin with a group prayer led by the Lutheran pastor wearing blue jeans and a ballcap.

But not many days of harvest see 200 acres of winter wheat cut by 14 combines – in less than three hours.

“It was magnificent,” said June Rowland, whose brother Marv Hergert died last month after fighting cancer. “I heard people talking about it but I never realized how big it would be.”

The 14 combines were part of a threshing bee – a community effort to harvest all of Hergert’s fields since the 71-year-old no longer could, with the benefits going to his widow, Kenda.

Giant wheat-harvesting combines lumbered down winding Palouse roads Monday morning and gathered at a field outside the tiny town of Endicott. One by one, they lined up in a row, old metal Gleaners next to new, shiny green John Deeres. Wheat trucks queued up nearby, and farmers’ wives climbed a small hill to get a picture of the rare sight.

Such an effort might seem like an organizational nightmare. But it was simple, really, said Chuck Hughes of the McGregor fertilizer company.

“You just say something and then everybody starts calling each other,” Hughes said. “They all want to help.”

So many wanted to help harvest Hergert’s fields that Hughes had to turn people away, he said. With so many working, what would have taken Marv Hergert two weeks to complete with his old combine took only a few hours.

“That’s what rural America is all about,” Hughes said. “No matter what happens, people want to help you without expecting anything back.”

Most of those people know that the community would do the same thing for them.

That’s what happened to Dale Smick three years ago when he couldn’t harvest and his son was sick with Crohn’s disease. Community members joined forces and harvested his land.

“It seems like every year one is going on,” he said. “Somebody gets sick, but the community comes together and helps out.”

At the bee Monday, loads of grain were taken to the Wheat Growers of Endicott elevators, where workers weighed a steady stream of trucks filled with Hergert’s wheat. Most farmers were already done with their harvests this year, but even those with work still to do pitched in.

After the fields were cleared, workers gathered at the Endicott Gun Club for a potluck.

Sitting on a bench that faced the shooting range, Ron Garrett remembered Hergert, who after finishing harvest for the day would sit on the same bench to play cards and drink beer.

“He was a hell of a good neighbor,” Garrett said. “He would have been first at any of these places.”

Hergert, a member of the Washington state trapshooting hall of fame, was key in running the Endicott Gun Club. Friends spoke of his generosity to the community. Some of the high school-age grain-truck drivers got involved in trapshooting because of Hergert. Others remembered his distinct singing voice and his athletic ability – often mentioned was his baseball scholarship to WSU where he played for Buck Bailey.

Family members were grateful for the effort.

“I don’t know what words to use,” said Kenda Hergert, who was married to Marv for 22 years. “This makes you realize how important the community is.”

She said she was amazed at the number of people helping Monday as she traveled in a pickup from one harvesting operation to the other on ranch land farther outside town. The last three weeks since her husband died have been filled with questions, but after Monday she knew one thing for certain.

“We’ll continue to farm,” she said. “It’s a good feeling.”

At the edge of town, the high hill of the Endicott Cemetery provided a prime spot to watch the phalanx of combines crawl over the field.

Bob Bafus was in town to grab some oil and watching the scene from the bumper of his pickup.

“Up here you have generation after generation of German names, and Hergert is one of them,” Bafus said as he gestured at the rows of headstones that cascaded down the hillside. Marv Hergert was buried there last month.

From a mile away, the combines’ chaff – a mixture of dust and feather-light straw – floated around the cemetery monuments.

“Maybe his spirit is watching over this gift of love toward him,” Bafus said.