Gretchen Price, the treasurer of the Randolph County Republican Executive Committee, was presented with the award at the conclusion of the dinner, which took place at the Elks Country Club.

The dinner also featured comments from more than 10 candidates running for office in the May 12 primary election.

Leonhardt, the event’s keynote speaker, said agriculture in the state is facing many challenges.

“In 1863, 90% of the people in West Virginia lived on a farm,” he said. “And today, we’re down to about 4%. And we have a lot of great challenges – people are talking about losing farmland for a lot of the industry that’s coming in.

West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture Kent Leonhardt, center, speaks during Saturday’s Lincoln Day Dinner in Elkins.

“We’ve got to be mindful of that, but we also have to realize that we have some great technology that’s allowing us to keep up and feed the citizens, not only of West Virginia, but of the rest of the world. We need to make sure that we keep that technology going and also maintain the support of agriculture.”

Leonhardt also spoke about tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.

“I know the people have heard a little bit about the tariffs, that have hurt a lot of the industries. The West Virginia timber industry is one of those that got hurt. But we can do things about it, and I’ll just give you an example. Currently, I’m president of the Southern U.S. Trade Association, which is an advocacy group,” he said.

“Recently, we did an inbound trade mission, and I had buyers of hardwoods in West Virginia from India and Vietnam, and they actually walked away with orders handed to our loggers and our mills for that export. Now, Department of Agriculture, most people don’t realize that we’re more than cows and plows,” Leonhardt said.

“And I can tell you, the loggers were very grateful that this was the first inbound trade mission we’ve ever done here for hardwoods … And we plan to start doing a few more and bring them up into your region and then further up north, because we’ve got some of the best hardwoods in the world right here in West Virginia. And those buyers recognized it, and just started making relationships. They started buying right away.”

Price was presented the 2026 Randolph County Republican of the Year award by Carolyn Jackson, chair of the Randolph County Republican Executive Committee.