Rancher named WSU regent

OLYMPIA – Gov. Chris Gregoire has named Harold Cochran, a wheat rancher from the southeastern Washington town of Prescott, to the board of regents for Washington State University.

“It’s a big honor, but it was unexpected,” said Cochran, 58, who said he’d bring a strong Palouse farm background to the job.

Gregoire said that’s why she picked him.

“Harold Cochran’s experience as a third-generation wheat rancher and his work with the Washington Association of Wheat Growers and Walla Walla County Wheat Growers make him an excellent choice, given WSU’s historic agricultural roots,” the governor said in a statement Friday. “As the state’s land-grant university, WSU will be well-served by Harold’s background and connections in the agricultural community.”

Asked about some of the statehouse legislation swirling around higher education – tuition-increase limits of 7 percent a year, hundreds of millions of dollars for construction projects – he said he’s encouraged. “If we can keep education affordable, that’s important,” he said.

He said he’s also proud of the university’s reputation for agriculture research. It will serve the state well, Cochran predicts, as the country focuses on crop-based fuels and bioscience.

“I think agriculture is on the beginning of a good age here,” he said.

Cochran farms 5,500 acres of dry-land wheat near Prescott, a small town about 15 miles north of Walla Walla. He’s a former board member for Walla Walla Community College, Northwest Grain Growers and Bank of the West.

He’s a Gonzaga University graduate, earning a bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1971 and master’s of education in counseling in 1973. His father was a WSU graduate, as are most of his neighbors and one of his sons.