Leaders Banquet honors Hargrove, Seabrook
Retiring State Sen. Jim Hargrove was given special recognition and Seabrook was named Large Business of the Year Friday night during the 125th Leaders Banquet and Business Recognition Awards dinner at the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino.
Other highlights included presentations by U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer to Hargrove, who served in the Legislature for more than 30 years, and to the winners of the Washington Coast Works Sustainable Small Business Competition.
Extreme Fun Center at the newly renamed Shoppes at Riverside in Aberdeen was named the New Business of the Year, D4 Sports of Cosmopolis was named Small Business of the Year, and the Grays Harbor YMCA was named Non-Profit of the Year in the awards presented by Greater Grays Harbor Inc.
Kilmer served with Hargrove in the Legislature before winning his Congressional seat, and he read a letter of tribute to Hargrove for his 32 years of legislative service from former eight-term state Rep. Lynn Kessler.
“He’s a man whose word you could take to the bank,” the letter said. “He sponsored numerous bills throughout his career that made a difference in literally thousands of lives.”
Kilmer noted he was 10 years old when Hargrove from Hoquiam won his first term in office. Hargrove retires this year as the longest-serving member of the state Senate.
“Jim truly has the heart of a servant-leader,” Kilmer said. “His concern is always for the least among us.”
He lauded Hargrove for helping to strengthen the state’s social safety net in combating poverty or helping victims of domestic violence.
“He has the courage of bucking what’s wrong with politics today,” Kilmer continued. “Too often, the focus of politics is on who is winning or who is up or who is down. Jim’s focus was on what’s right and what’s wrong. If you had a good idea, Jim had the courage to support it whether you were a Democrat or a Republican.”
Hargrove told the crowd of several hundred people that he was “encouraged by the great spirit we have in this community.” After introducing his wife Laurie and his mother, Hargrove quoted from the Bible, Proverbs 3:6 — “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path.”
“And that’s what I try to do,” Hargrove concluded as he accepted the honor from the organization.
Seabrook Award
Growing to 300 privately owned homes with new shops, a town center and a new main entrance under construction, Seabrook also earned accolades for giving back 1 percent of the purchase price of every new home to the Seabrook Community Foundation, which provides grants for organizations and scholarships across the North Beach and Grays Harbor at large.
Founder Casey Roloff was met with a standing ovation when he accepted the Large Business of the Year award, introducing both his mother Robyn and wife Laura to the audience.
“I still look at Grays Harbor as having so much opportunity,” he said. “I hope that Seabrook brings new opportunity. I hope that we can make a difference in and and around the community.”
Roloff told a story about how he and his mother were looking for property to develop about 2001 and they visited Ocean Shores to take a look at the recently completed Quinault Beach Resort.
“We couldn’t believe the quality of the building, so we came up here and stayed the night,” he said of the first experience that ultimately paved the way for his initial $3 million investment in the coastal property that would become Seabrook.
“I think what it tells you is the value of business and how it creates opportunities in Grays Harbor,” Roloff said. “We didn’t plan on being here, but the Quinault Beach Resort, with the risk they took on building the casino and this development, gave us the spark to think about Grays Harbor and the opportunity here.”
Roloff noted he and Laura had just started their family and completed a house on the Oregon Coast when he took that trip with his mother and discovered this new opportunity on the North Beach of Grays Harbor.
“It just really blew us away because we had been living on the Oregon Coast for about 10 years,” Roloff recalled. “With that experience coming to the North Beach area, we really realized that this was where we needed to be. We were always drawn to the ocean, and when we were looking for property, the Oregon Coast had gotten over-priced. We looked at Greater Puget Sound and said, ‘People really need another place to go here on the Washington Coast.’”
Washington Coast Works
The Washington Coast Works sustainable small business competition presented awards and honors to 11 finalists:
Jessica Ellis (Montesano) for solar-powered dog boarding; Jesse Foss (Amanda Park) for stump grinding with bio-diesel and wood chip recycling; Mike Maki (Hoquiam) for bio-char based organic fertilizer; Jeff Meeks (Montesano) for sustainable production of boat kits and woodworking; Carrie and Jonas Merrill (Beaver) for a beekeeping farm; Evan Mulvaney (Montesano) for pig farm using sustainable agriculture and pastured pork; Erla Penn (La Push) for conducting tours of the Quileute reservation; Ceantanni Polm (Hoquiam) for community supported permaculture farm; Alan Richrod (Aberdeen) for small manufacturing of unique art project holding systems; Anna Sablan (La Push) for solar-powered tiny houses; and Laurel Shearer (Aberdeen) for homemade candles using fair trade chocolate.
The Quinault Indian Nation was the 2016 Title Sponsor of Washington Coast Works, which was established by The Nature Conservancy in collaboration with the Center for Inclusive Entrepreneurship, Enterprise for Equity and the Ta’ala Fund, and funded in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Business Development Grant. Coast Works is designed to diversify the economies in Grays Harbor, Jefferson and Clallam Counties through the development of new small businesses. Visit www.wacoastworks.org for more information.
By: Angelo Bruscas
Source: The North Coast News