West Plains has enormous potential for our economic future

In the early 1960s, I attended grade school at St. Anthony in Renton. Catholic schools attracted students from quite a large area, so a number of kids in my class were from the Kent valley. I well remember a classmate whose family owned a dairy in the Kent area telling me that his family had just sold their dairy for over a million dollars.

The amount made quite an impression on me and even then, the idea of a local farm being worth so much money was confusing.

I was too young to understand that correctly zoned land that was level and inexpensive, with existing railroad services, an airport ne...