Well, this wasn’t on my calendar for the week.

Over the years, I’ve attended a number of Soil & Water Conservation District meetings, and now that I’m back in The Dalles (after a couple of years in Seattle to be close to my elderly dad, who passed away in 2024), I’ve realized how much I want to reconnect with agricultural and conservation work happening here.

I’ve renewed my membership in Oregon Women for Agriculture, have my “No Farms, No Food” bumper sticker on the back of my vehicle, and am a member of the ASIS International Agriculture and Food Security Community, which brings together security professionals interested in protecting agriculture and our food systems.

This week I attended conservation district meetings in both Hood River and The Dalles, and came away more interested than ever in the remarkable range of work these districts help make possible: soil health and erosion control; irrigation and water conservation; stream and riparian restoration; forest health and wildfire resilience; fish and wildlife habitat; invasive species management; drought preparedness; agricultural conservation; watershed health; and connecting farmers, ranchers and other landowners with technical expertise and funding for conservation projects.

Then, at the end of the Wasco County meeting, it was announced that one of the district’s two at-large board members is not running for reelection — and that no one had yet stepped forward.

And I thought, “I would really like to do this.”

So, I’m throwing my hat into the ring as a write-in candidate for Wasco County Soil & Water Conservation District, At-Large Position 2.

For those who followed this site during my 2022 State Senate campaign but don’t know all the pieces of my background, this new role brings quite a few of them together.

I’ve taught biology, geology and ecology, and during COVID taught agriculture online for Hood River County School District. I’ve worked for years in climate-change education, community resilience, nonprofit leadership and public service. Today, through CompreSec, my work focuses on risk management, resilience and protective planning — thinking in systems about what we value, what threatens it, and what practical steps we can take to protect it.

My connection to agriculture goes back much further. I spent part of my childhood in eastern Oregon and showed my 4-H goat at the Umatilla County Fair. I’ve lived and worked in different parts of rural Oregon and have a deep love for the people and natural lands here.

I’ll be sharing more here over the coming weeks, and I’ve already begun updating MasonforOregon.com for this rather unexpected new adventure.

But here’s the really important part: this is a WRITE-IN campaign.

If you live in Wasco County, when you receive your November ballot, please find:

Wasco County Soil & Water Conservation District
At-Large Position 2

and write in:

RAZ MASON

My name will not already be printed on the ballot.

If you don’t live in Wasco County but know someone who does, would you please share this post with them? With a write-in campaign, simply helping Wasco County voters know there is a candidate — and remember the name Raz Mason when they fill out their ballots — is extremely helpful.

Here’s to stewarding the water and lands we love.