Woodland owners Richard and Zenobia White of Myrtle Creek have made a $140,000 gift that will eventually help OSU Forestry Extension reach out to nonindustrial forest landowners, showing them how to apply the latest research to managing their woodlands.

The Whites' gift, which comes in the form of stock, is funding two annuities. The gift will some day become the Richard M. and Zenobia M. White Private and Family Forestry Fund in the College of Forestry. It's a gift of gratitude, in a way.

Both Richard and Zenobia White have a long-standing relationship with the Extension Service. Zenobia White was involved in 4-H as a girl (her grandparents pioneered in Myrtle Creek in 1952) and her son was a student at Oregon State. Richard's connection with Extension goes back to the 1920s and '30s, when his father and mother were struggling to keep their California wheat farm going in the midst of the Depression.

"Father thought it would be a great help if there were a variety of wheat better suited to California conditions," says White. "There was one that worked well, except that it was susceptible to rust," a fungal disease that severely reduces yields. With the help of the local Extension agents, he remembers, his father was one of the area's first farmers to acquire and try a newly developed, rust-resistant variety of wheat. The following year was a bad year for rust, but his father's crop suffered little damage. "After that," he says, "the other farmers accepted the new variety very quickly."

In short, Extension saved the day for the Whites, and his father never forgot it. "Extension represents the concept of continuous education," says White. "My father lived to be 97, and he believed in it to the end of his days." It's an ethic that White adopted for himself, and so he knew just where to turn when he moved to Douglas County and acquired a 2,900-acre parcel of cut-over timber land in 1964.

The land was in tough shape.

"It hadn't been exactly clearcut," says White, "but there were successive waves of logging that eventually took off just about everything. I was told that the land had very little reproduction potential." White found that his extensive knowledge of wheat didn't help him much with this sort of farming. "So I got in touch with the Extension Service. I took a lot of workshops and tours." He joined a small-woodland owner association and set about a lengthy process of self-education.

Mike Cloughesy, Extension forester in Douglas County from 1987 to 1992, remembers White as a diligent and motivated student. "He took the basic woodland management course in 1988, one of the first ones I taught," he says. "Most of the tours I put together, he was there, and he always asked a lot of questions. You know how when you teach a class, and when you're done most of the people go home, but a few always stay around because they're really interested? He's one of the stay-arounders."

In 1990, White was nominated for Douglas County Tree Farmer of the Year. Cloughesy was on the team that evaluated the forest practices of all the candidates. "I remember we went out on a hot day," says Cloughesy. "It's tough ground--a rocky south slope, southwestern Oregon kind of ground, a Doug-fir site, but a challenging Doug-fir site. Mr. White was doing a good job with it." Another tree farmer received the honor that year, but White's skillful management attests to his ethic of continuous learning, Cloughesy says.

The Whites are happy with the progress of their tree farm, even though it is not yet mature enough to be logged sustainably. "I was pleasantly surprised by the productive capacity of the land," White says. "It's taken 37 years to get a very high degree of reproduction, but it's not yet to a sustained-yield level. I expect that will happen at around 50 years." That reality--the long, slow wait for a return on investment--is the major disincentive to sustainable small-woodland management, White believes. "When my grandson was 16, he was helping me plant trees,' he says. "And I told him, 'You will reach retirement age before these trees are big enough to harvest." He thought that was too long a wait, and he's no different from hundreds of other people."

Richard White is 88; his wife is 87. They know they may never see any significant financial reward from their tree farm. But they're glad to be contributing to the future of good forestry in Oregon, with the help of the Extension Service. "God made Oregon a beautiful place and a very productive place to grow fir trees," says White. "That is a God-given thing, and it came to me as a gift."