CiderCON & The Lost Language

Members of the United States Association of Cider Makers will convene in Portland next week for CiderCON 2016, the annual meeting and conference for the nation's cider industry. Sherrye Wyatt with NW Cider explains that this is a first.

WYATT: CiderCON is the national conference of the cider industry and it's the big event for the whole industry and people are coming from all over the world. We expect over a thousand people this year and it's the first time we've had it in Portland. Workshops and tours and even the first time we've ever offered a new certification for people in the cider industry.

I was recently stunned to learn that schools no longer teach our kids how to write in cursive. What was once a form of art in some cases could very well become a dead form of communication but a recent bill submitted in Olympia would make cursive mandatory in Washington schools. Most people today use a keyboard to write down thoughts, text or email so cursive has fallen in it's use. Sen. Pam Roach from Auburn is the bill's sponsor and said if children are not taught cursive they can't read historic documents written in cursive. State law does not demand the instruction of cursive and most districts let teachers decide.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.