Dedication of the Lift at Pataha Flour Mill

April 11, 2026
by Representative Mary Dye

Lt. Governor Denny Heck, and your lovely wife of a half century, Paula, and distinguished guests …

We are honored to celebrate together this place and the commitment we share to make our community a place of living history, and a continuity that sustains our sense of identity and belonging, a place that echoes with fond memories and historic struggles as our families, undaunted, broke open the abundance of this beautiful place and created a community bound together in the profound responsibility of stewarding the legacy this land ties us to.

Lt. Governor, we are so deeply grateful that you would commit your time and resources to come here and honor this occasion.

We are deeply rooted to this place our families built.

Within these ledgers, carefully scribed, are the stories of families who kept the history of determination, with the tightest of margins. But it is more. It is a community, united, there for each other, uniquely competitive, but respectful of the social order that constrains us to resist conflict.

We’ve tried to understand the perspectives of those who left our land and prospered significantly, but they haven’t experienced the vagaries of nature, nor her bounty, the joys and sorrows that shape the essential character that sustains the agrarians and the communities dependent on their work. To those who left, we are simply a distant memory.

Today, we celebrate the revival of a spirit, ancient and renewed—the purpose of the soul. Much like the faith of those who, generation to generation for hundreds of years, stone upon stone, built the great cathedrals of Europe, we stand on hallowed ground—the cathedral of our families—who built upon this land the flowing fields of abundance, ground into sustenance, a sacrifice of praise, an act of faith that the land and the Great Creator would bless and provide for those whose grit and determination created a valued community in the plains surrounded by the mountains, whose trees stand today holding our cathedral to the heartland, the place that provides abundantly for those who persisted through, and stand here as a testament to the determination required, the disciplines of the soul it takes to hold these values and pass them to our generations to come.

We have farmed through tremendous and fundamental social change; times have not been kind to these places. It is a testament to the relentless tenacity and fortitude of those whose families are seated in this room today. Thank you, Lt. Governor, for coming today, for seeing us in this light, in the place that represents all that is good about our community and who we are as people. Having the State give us this gift, as we have aged, and so many of our children have no desire to return, is something we desperately needed.

This is our gathering place, a place of song and worship, a place of learning and community civic organization.

Within this remote, eloquently beautiful wild frontier county, there is something spiritual, not for sale, in this way of life of ours. Our commitment to our land is as deep as our love of God and of our family, many who sit here today, related through place and blood, and mutual affection. We share a rich and resonant cultural heritage, a generational legacy, and a mastery of the art that creates abundance and life.

In the fast-moving consumer world of the city, those things of deeper meaning get muddled amid the frenetic pace of day-to-day life. There is a need—an unanswered longing.

Our lives, making our living from the land and what nature provides, and those who live serving the social order of the human environment, have fundamentally different perspectives.

This is a living, vital place of people who won’t ask for anything.

It took a tremendous amount of effort from our stewards at the Department of Commerce, the Watsons, Tim and Chris Osborne, Vertical Solutions, and the dedicated building code officials who expedited our inspections, as well as Robert and Flerschinger Electric, and Wendi, for giving us your skills and gifts.

Lt. Governor, thank you for coming today. Today, we feel seen. Our little community matters. Thank you for coming to this wonderful celebration, where we can see that through common care of the life-sustaining foundational institutions that form the context of lives full of meaning and purpose, and by coming together to share the responsibility of stewarding these communities in places of need, we can celebrate our shared history—memories of a time when common bonds were forged—and, through renewed understanding and shared responsibility, bridge our differences with empathy; strengthening our shared purpose, we will sustain these communities—together—for generations to come.