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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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During a recent inteview with new Wilcox Farms CEO Linda Thomas, we talked at length about chickens and eggs.
Having sold off its dairy operation, Wilcox has literally put all of its eggs in one basket: organic commercial egg production.
Being raised in the city, I had little knowledge of egg production, so what I learned was fascinating.
The bulk of my interview appeared in Monday's News Tribune, but some of the more interesting facts got excised by the editor's delete key so the interview would fit in the space allotted.
Here are some of those tidbits that didn't make the story.
* Hens must be 19 weeks old before they begin laying eggs.
* As they start producing eggs, their first ones are small and then gradually increase in size.
* After their production diminishes, Wilcox reduces the light in their hen houses for a few weeks to fool the hens that its wintertime. When the lights go on for longer periods, their egg-laying cycle begins again.
* A typical hen's productive life ranges from 90 to 120 weeks before they're slaughtered.
* Since Wilcox's chickens are organically raised, the company is looking for an organic pet food maker to whom they'll sell the meat.
* Wilcox is considering raising its own crops organically on its 1,500 acres near McKenna because trucking in organically-raised food is becoming more expensive because of fuel prices.
* Wilcox could raise corn organically on its farm, but climatic conditions here are marginal for corn. A more likely crop: peas.
