The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

If you want to know about grain elevators you can ask two of Northwest Grain Growers longtime employees Lupe Benevides and Tim Mayberry. Both have worked at the local elevators as warehousemen and foremen for over 37 years each. If you ever had a summer job working at the local elevators or driving trucks for the local farmers, you know them well.

Lupe Benevides

Lupe Benevides lives in Dayton and oversees the Columbia County, Waitsburg and Coppei elevators and is on call to help out at all the facilities run by NWGG. He was born in Loreto, Mexico on the California Baja coast. His family first moved to Loredo, Texas and finally to Dayton, when Lupe was 11- years-old.

"We moved here knowing no one and now we're related to half the town," joked Lupe.

He has lived here since, only leaving the area to join the army in 1971, serving in South Korea.

"It was good to go somewhere after high school and then come back to enjoy home even more," he said.

After returning home from the army, Lupe worked briefly at the Dayton Ranch Market, now Dayton Mercantile where he had previously worked while in high school. He left that job to become a warehouseman for Columbia County Grain Growers at their seed plant. Northwest Grain Growers has since bought the facilities and Lupe continues to work as a foreman at the grain elevators during harvest and at the seed plant the rest of the year.

He travels between the elevators under his supervision giving support to the seasonal workers, monitoring storage capacity, and making sure the elevators are operating smoothly and efficiently.

It is clear when visiting the elevators that his seasonal workers are well trained, hard-working and conscientious. In addition to the seasonal workers, Lupe has three warehousemen, Nathan Holmberg, Dave Brock and Cody Scott, who work with him year-round.

To give an idea of the scope of responsibility involved with harvest, the Dayton facility handles approximately 1.5 million bushels during July through August. This does not count the other smaller elevators Lupe oversees or the seed plant capacity.

Tim Mayberry

Tim Mayberry was born and raised in Prescott and, like Lupe, he also left after high school only to come back more appreciative of his hometown. After graduating from Lewis and Clark State College, having played two years of baseball and receiving a business degree, Tim moved back to Prescott.

He was quickly hired by Touchet Valley Grain Growers, now Northwest Grain Growers, as a full-time warehouseman and foreman. The Prescott elevator is a large operation handling up to 200 plus trucks a day and 3.8 million bushels during harvest. Unlike Columbia County, Prescott does not have a seed plant, but offers a variety of storage facilities. There are two ground piles and a flat house, as well as silos.

Farming is a family business as Tim's family on his mother's side still farms wheat at the Dorsey Wheat Ranch in Prescott. One of the valuable things he feels he has received while working at the Prescott elevator is "knowing all the farmers is like having an extended family." This really seems to highlight his approach to his job where he treats his employees and the farmers who use the elevators as family.

Tim is always busy, either at the shop measuring the farmers samples, supporting and training his seasonal workers, or attending the never-ending maintenance needs at the facility. Working for NWGG also means that he is on call if they need him at any of their facilities. His staff includes seven seasonal workers and a full-time warehouseman, Connor Beale, who all work the seven days a week it takes to bring in the harvest.

Both Lupe Benevides and Tim Mulberry are long time employees at these crucial facilities with 38 and 37 years respectively. This longevity speaks to their ongoing commitment and long earned expertise in their fields. Pun intended.