Rocky Crate, DVM & Wild Sheep Foundation Endowed Chair in Wild Sheep Disease Research

Join us in supporting this endowed chair position.

The faculty in the department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology are recognized worldwide as leaders in the research of infectious diseases that threaten animal health on a local and global scale, as well as virology, parasitology, bacteriology, vaccine production, and immunology. We provide advanced graduate and post-doctoral training in infectious diseases and immunology and core instruction in the professional veterinary medical program and post-DVM education.

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"A year before, there was no way I could have imagined I'd be giving more than a million dollars to something like this", explained Dr. Rocky Crate, the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine's first donor of a $1.5 million endowed chair. "I thought some rich bugger would step up and fund the proposal. But you know things change, the government isn't fair, and life has a way of making some decisions for you. As it turns out, I stepped up because no one else had." 

Originally written for The Foundation for North American Wild Sheep, the proposal for an endowed chair in wild sheep disease research recognizes WSU's unmatched record of research success. Dr. Bill Foreyt in the WSU Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology department has published more original research on wild sheep diseases in refereed journals than all other universities have combined. In addition, the university's proximity to Hells Canyon, a living laboratory for wild sheep, affords the institution an unequalled advantage. 

Dr. Crate is the direct descendant of Washington pioneers who came west with the Hudson's Bay Company, Canada's oldest business enterprise. A 1969 alumnus of WSU's veterinary college and the former owner of Crate Veterinary Hospital in Spanaway, Wash., Dr. Crate says he became interested in wild sheep after his first hunt in 1988. 

"Up until that time, I'd lived a life of very hard work and long hours. I was recovering from my third back surgery and on a lark really, I booked a Dall sheep hunt in the Yukon. The guide just happened to mention the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep at the time, too. I'll tell you; I was hooked." 

After a time and after becoming enamored with perhaps the world's most elusive quarry, Crate helped found the Washington chapter of FNAWS. The foundation is the world's most successful wildlife conservation organization annually giving away millions of dollars to support wild sheep conservation. 

The new sport fit Dr. Crate's personality well. A lifelong athlete as well as shooting sports enthusiast, he especially enjoyed the brutal physicality of sheep hunts as well as the mental challenge. To prepare for his almost annual trips that have netted him eight trophies in 10 trips, Dr. Crate often jogged after work-at night-carrying rocks and bags of fertilizer on his pack frame-with only a flashlight to illuminate his path. 

"You go through mental games when you hunt sheep," he explained, his eyes squinting as he described the concentration required. "The minute you give up, you're done. It's that simple." 

It may have been that ability to focus that also made Dr. Crate and partner Larry Schorno so successful in their enterprise, Schorno Agri Business. Together, the pair who Dr. Crate describes as, "two idiots working 25 hours a day," gained an international reputation for excellence in the air transportation of horses and cattle. 

"We were the first to fly full loads of horses and cattle too, for that matter, on Boeing 747s," said an obviously proud Dr. Crate. "We've put more dairy cattle in Iran, Korea, and China than anyone else. We've shipped full loads to Japan, Turkey, and Taiwan, too. In fact, we've never failed to put animals on the plane and deliver them on time and that's generally working within only a 30-day time frame most of the time." 

Dr. Crate went on to explain that in the high risk, high expense game of animal air transportation, most shippers don't last due to undercapitalization and an inability to weather the world's changing political landscape. 

"Let me give you an example. When the Shah [of Iran] fell, we had 10,000 head of cattle ready to ship with nowhere to go. You start adding up the daily feed bill and any profit disappears in a hurry. But we ended up moving them to other countries quickly and that's what it takes." 

When interviewed in the summer of 1998, Dr. Crate was applying the same will and determination that built his success as a veterinarian, businessman, and hunter to bear on a fight with cancer. A lung tumor and a series of brain malignancies had come to light earlier in the year. A precise brain surgery performed at the University of Washington had taken care of the brain tumors. And daily radiation therapy had slowed the advance of the inevitable but sapped the vigor of this veterinary leader. Still, he had another sheep hunt planned for the fall and looked forward to what his gift would accomplish at his alma mater. 

"What I'd really like to see is WSU and FNAWS find a way to prevent the contraction and spread of pneumonia in wild sheep, their number one killer," said Dr. Crate. "That's it, that's what I want, because hunting is not just about killing. I get a kick out of just watching sheep and I want to know they are out there. It's all about putting more sheep on the mountain." 

And Dr. Crate has some advice for other potential donors, too. "If you can afford it and there is a need, just do it!" 

Dr. Rocky Crate passed away in 1999.

Read about Kate Huyvaert, the professor currently in this position.

Recipients

• Kate Huyvaert, 2021-current
• Thomas Besser, 2016-2020
• Subramaniam Srikumaran, 2011-2015