The Washington State Tree Fruit Association named 13th District Representative, Tom Dent, as the 2025 Legislator of the Year at their annual conference last month.
Dent was recognized for working to bring awareness about the mental health challenges and suicides that plague the agricultural industry.
“They don’t understand the depth of debt that our agricultural producers may be in, what it takes to do the job, and they don’t understand how the crops are marketed, you know, where the payday comes from. They don’t understand that, so it’s a challenge to continually work with them.”
Dent says many people don’t like to talk about suicide or to acknowledge it.
“You know, we keep talking about it because it’s real. We keep talking about it, that, you know, there’s help out there. You don’t have to live this way. You keep doing it. The one thing that I will say in the eleven years that I’ve been doing this, I’ve seen the needle move.”
And getting the farmers to accept help, Dent says, is also a challenge.
“Yeah, the stigma is there. Yeah, nobody wants to park their pickup out in front of the mental health counselor’s office, right? I get that part, but maybe there’s a way around that, maybe there are other ways to do that. But whatever we do, let’s find a way to get some help because it’s not permanent. You know, that the mind is really an amazing thing, but it can go to a dark place, and we just need to bring it back.”