Mitchell Nelson opened a Christmas card Tuesday from an old friend he hadn’t seen in two years.
The next day, he learned his friend had died.
Dick Withee, 58, of Gold Bar died Tuesday in a head-on collision on U.S. 2 about two miles east of Snohomish.
Withee’s job for nearly three decades before his retirement was to make sure plants and crops were safe to cross the state’s and nation’s borders. He worked with the federal and state departments of agriculture.
“I talked to him probably about a month ago, and he was full of life,” said Nelson, director of the USDA’s plant protection and quarantine division in Oregon. “He was looking forward to helping out in the state of Washington. For a guy who was retired, he sure had a lot of energy.”
Withee was driving westbound about 1:30 p.m. when a car drifted into his lane and collided with his, the Washington State Patrol said.
A 34-year-old woman and her 5-year-old daughter were in the other car.
The woman suffered broken ribs, broken teeth, a punctured lung and a broken toe. Her daughter suffered a broken foot. They were taken to Providence Everett Medical Center’s Colby Campus. They remained in the hospital Wednesday in satisfactory condition.
The State Patrol arrested the woman on suspicion of vehicular homicide. Detectives suspect she was driving under the influence of some type of drug or medication, trooper Keith Leary said Tuesday.
The woman, a married mother of three, is battling ovarian cancer. She’s in the midst of chemotherapy, said Jennifer Zill of Stanwood, the woman’s older sister. The woman’s family isn’t sure whether she’ll survive her cancer treatment, Zill said.
After the accident, the woman said she hadn’t taken any pain medication since Monday, Zill said.
The woman was heading to her mother’s house in Monroe to drop off Christmas presents. Now she’s in the hospital trying to cope with Withee’s death, Zill said.
“It’s a difficult and sad time for us all right now,” Zill said. “Certainly I’m not minimizing the loss of the other family. A death occurred in the other family, and we’re all upset about that.”
People who knew Withee were shocked by his death.
“He’s a very easy-going person, very friendly, very pleasant to work with, very helpful,” said Mae Ikawa, 45, who worked alongside him for more than 10 years at the USDA’s Seattle plant inspection station.
Withee had friends all over the world through his role in international trade, Nelson said.
He earned the nickname “Mr. Cherry” for helping orchestrate the cherry trade between Pacific Northwest growers and Japanese businesses.
His job required him to spend several summers with growers in Oregon and Washington. He spent countless hours in the dead of night boarding airplanes and ships, making sure their cargoes were free of pests that could damage domestic crops.
Withee also spent several years as a USDA training officer, passing along knowledge to the next generation of plant inspectors.
Withee stepped down from his federal job in 2003 and took a part-time job with the state Department of Agriculture. He moved from Shoreline to Gold Bar, where he could work from home and start a new garden.
Still, he worked, forming strategies to detect sudden oak death, a disease that has killed many oak trees in Oregon and California since 1995.
Withee loved his family, co-workers said. He’s survived by his wife, two daughters and two grandchildren.
“He would always end his conversations with his wife on the phone with ‘I love you,’ ” Ikawa said. “We’ll miss him terribly.”
Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.
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