Founding Member Steve Webster October 27, 1942 – June 18, 2017
Among Steve’s many achievements, he was a small forest landowner, his passion. His professional career included soil mapping, researching forest nutrition and teaching family forest management as a forestry extension educator for Washington State University cooperative extension.
Steve and Mary, his wife of 52 years, own and manage a 255 acre tree farm in Western Lewis County, as well as being the managing partner for the Webster Tree Farm, LP. He was a member of the Lewis County Farm Forestry Association and a lifetime member of the Washington Farm Forestry Association. In 1998, he was elected a fellow in the Society of American Foresters. He was elected SAF Washington State Forester of the year in 1993, received the LCFFA Forest Management Award in 1998, and was the Lewis County Tree Farmer of the Year in 2007. Steve was honored as Centralia College 2005 distinguished alumnus.
He attended Centralia Schools, graduating from Centralia High School in 1960. Steve then attended Centralia College for two years before receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in agronomy from Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., in 1965. He went on to earn his master’s degree in forest soils from Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon in 1967. Steve received his PhD in forest soils from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C. in 1973. After graduation, he returned to Lewis County where he began his forestry career with the Weyerhaeuser Research Center in Centralia from 1973 to 1986. Steve became the WSU Extension Forester in 1987, and retired in 2003.
Memorial donations can be made to the Centralia College Foundation Distinguished Alumnus Scholarship Fund Centralia College Foundation, 600 Centralia College Blvd., Centralia, WA 98531-4099, 360-623-8942, foundation@centralia.edu.