04/14/08 Potato Conference moving to Tri-Cities for 2009

Washington Ag April 14, 2008 The Washington State Potato Conference and Trade Show will not be held in Moses Lake next year. Dodds: "Well we decided to move the Potato Conference to the Tri-Cities Convention Center and the dates will be January 26th through the 28th 2009. And the reason we moved it was that we felt that was the best facility in the region to have the conference." That's Conference board chairman Mike Dodds who says moving the event was not an easy decision given that the conference has been in Moses Lake since its inception 47 years ago. Dodds: "But we just couldn't get around the growers and the vendors kept making the comment that they wanted the trade show and conference at one location and Moses Lake just didn't have what we need in that respect." Dodds says next year they will re-evaluate where the 2010 conference will be. Informational meetings for the CSP sign-up for the Lower Snake-Tucannon watershed start tonight with the first session in Colfax at the Community Center, tomorrow in Dayton at the Youth Building on the fairgrounds, Wednesday at the Pomeroy High School and Thursday at the Clarkston USDA Service Center. All meetings begin at 6:30 p.m. I'm Bob Hoff.