Looking back on 100 years of the College of Forestry

As the College of Forestry at OSU celebrates a major milestone this week, one of the first families of Oregon forest management is looking both to the past and the future.

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Story Published: Nov 3, 2006 at 5:31 PM PST

By Andy Peterson

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When TJ Starker graduated in 1910 with the first class of the College of Forestry at the Oregon Agricultural College, he couldn't possibly have imagined a day like Friday: an open house at what is now Oregon State University, celebrating the College of Forestry's 100th anniversary.

That's a hundred years of educating and preparing the foresters of tomorrow, who will then come out to the woods and maintain and foster the forests of today.

Anna May is the fourth generation of the Starker family to study at OSU and work in the forests.

She and her uncle Barte Starker are applying what they learned in school, 30-plus years apart, to their 70,000 acres of trees around the mid-valley.

"Even as late as about 20 years ago, people were thinking all snags need to be removed from the forest," Starker says. "And that's changed dramatically in the last decade or two."

Today, snags damaged by lightning or ice, are left as habitat for native birds and animals.

Knowledge like that, is what the Starker family hopes to pass on to yet another generation, as they host up to a thousand school kids each year on field trips to their tree stands.

"I hope they get an understanding of kind of the ecology of the forests, what all goes into a healthy forest, and how they can be responsible citizens," Anna May explains, "as far as knowing about the forests and being able to make informed decisions when those kind of decisions come before the public."

That's also why folks at the College of Forestry's centennial open house are giving out saplings to visitors. They're helping to grow the future of forests, and the future foresters to guide them.

"It's the beginning of this journey," Barte Starker says. "Not the end."

In total, six members of the Starker family have graduated from the College of Forestry at OSU, between 1910 and 2005.

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