At their 95th Annual Convention held in Yakima July 16 – 21, delegates elected Grandview’s Jim Davidson to serve as Department (State) Commander of The American Legion for the coming year.
Davidson, a 33 member of Grandview’s Fred E. Hayes Post 57 of The American Legion, is a US Navy veteran who served as a Hospital Corpsman with Naval Aviation in the Pacific and aboard the US Naval Hospital Ship USS Sanctuary in Danang, Vietnam. He is a retired Physician Assistant.
Davidson served many years as the Commander of the Grandview Post and currently serves as the Post Adjutant and one of the Post Service Officers. Other leadership positions have included 6th District (Kittitas, Yakima and a portion of Klickitat Counties) Vice Commander for two terms, 6th District Commander for two terms, Department Vice Commander for Area Four (Southeast Washington) and Department Chaplain for three years. He recently completed 10 years on the Finance Commission, serving as chairman for the last 5 years. He is also the Boy Scout Chairman for the State. National service included one year on the Americanism Commission and as a member of the Economics Commission for the last three years.
Davidson said the coming year will bring many challenges. “First, I will be on the road a lot,” he said. “I may be gone four or more days a week. My schedule up to November is filing up rapidly.” Davidson noted he will eventually be in every corner of the state, but will spend a great deal of time on the West side of the state. “Our Department Headquarters is in Lacey and I will be there and the adjoining areas on a regular basis, especially to boost our service to current military members.” He explained there are over 180 Posts in the state serving over 27,000 members and that each area has distinct needs. Davidson added that his wife Nancy will serve as co-pilot on some of the longer and demanding road trips.
Davidson will be traveling to National Headquarters in Indianapolis in early August to submit the Department’s membership plan. Later in August, he will travel to the National Convention in Houston.
Davidson said he will be promoting all of the Legion programs, such as Boys State, Scouting, Junior Shooting Sports, and Educator of the Year. “However, the biggest challenge will be providing adequate care for our veterans, military and their families,” he said. “Everyone has heard about VA backlogs, and we are working hard with streamlining the claims submittal process through our service division.”
“Of course, membership is the ‘fuel’ that provides support for our programs and the service division,” he added, “so I, along with my membership team, will be recruiting members to help us meet those needs.” He noted there are over 800,000 eligible veterans in the State. “Anyone who served at least 24 hours during a period of war time is eligible to join The American Legion. It doesn’t matter where you served, only that you served,” he said.
Davidson added that he is honored and pleased that Troy Monholland of the Sunnyside Post agreed to serve as his Membership Chairman. “We’ll be pounding the road together many times. Troy and I have agreed to pursue all underserved veterans, but will be looking hard to have college student veterans and women veterans join us in ‘still serving America.’”
Davidson is the second member of Post 57 to serve as a State Commander.
