Bekkevars receive Clallam County Fair’s 2023 Family Farm of the Year

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Still working on land that Olaf Bekkevar established more than 110 years ago, the Bekkevar family’s farm was recently selected the Clallam County Fair’s 2023 Family Farm of the Year.

The family will be honored at the fair at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 17, at the Sunny Farm Stage.

Bekkevar Family Farm was established in Little Michigan, Eastern Clallam county, in 1910 by Olaf Bekkevar.

Olaf was born in Norway in 1886. Being the eighth of 12 children meant the large family farm would eventually go to his older brother so when he finished school, Olaf went to work on sailing vessels that gave him the opportunity to travel and see the world.

Olaf came to Seattle in 1908 to visit family in America. Logging and farming brought him to the peninsula where he purchased land in Clallam County that is the Bekkevar Family Farm today.

Olaf married Anna Huffman Campbell in 1917. Their life consisted of logging and farming; they supplied eggs for the military during World War II and sold vegetables in Seattle to keep the farm going.

They had four children: three girls and a boy, Dick, who married a local Clallam county girl, Winona Lotsgezell on June 16, 1946.

Her family came from Germany in 1859 and acquired nearly 1,000 acres of prime dairy and farm land in the Dungeness valley.

Dick and Winona raised their six children, four girls and two boys on the farm. Dave and Jim, their two boys, continue to work the farm today putting up hay, raising beef, and restoring tractors.

Over the years they have had other livestock and crops but always planned to pass the farm on to their own children one day.

Dave and Trish’s three boys, Nelson (his wife Christine and their two children, Wyatt and Paisley), Ole (his wife Jessica and their two children, Finley and Lennon) and Eli (his wife Jocelynn, who live in the original home on the farm and are currently raising sheep) along with Jim and Andrea’s two girls, Amanda and Megan, work on and enjoy the farm, passing on their knowledge to their children. They have plans for the continuity of the farm and hope to pass it to their own children one day.

To pass this life and farm down in time is a tribute to the past.

Over the years Bekkevar Family Farm has hosted farm tours, FFA and 4-H events, displayed hay art in the field for all to enjoy and participated in community events.

“Our roots run deep on the farm we plan on continuing and we love sharing our life on the farm,” family members said.