Owen L. Durand, Sr.

The following article from the Fall 1981 edition of "Forests and People," the quarterly journal of the Louisiana Forestry Association, was submitted with the Hall of Fame nomination for Owen Durand, Sr., by his daughter, Jo Ann Durand. The writer is Sharon Sparkman, for Forests and People.

He stands fix feet tall with broad shoulders and strong, muscled arms that are signs of his many years as a woodsman. His skin is tanned a weathered red from working long days in the sun, days which have faded the color of his working clothes to a washed out green.

Around the neck he wears a gold chain with a small charm of a racing stallion dangling from it--a touch of polish on this rugged outdoorsman.

From the straw western hat atop his head to the well-worn field boots on his feet, Owen Durand is the epitome of an experienced logger who is proud of his work and of his people.

Durand began working in the woods with his father in 1944 and has been in it in one form or fashion ever since.

Prior to starting his own logging business in 1970, Durand worked for other people in the forestry business for 26 years. Working several years with his father, Durand had an experience that many long-time loggers speak of--skidding timber with mules instead of machines.

He recalls many memories of those times including one mule in articular that he said was "the stubbornest animal I have ever seen. If you told her to walk forward, she'd back up."

Working that mule wore callouses on Durand's hands as though the gloves he wore were made of paper. As Durand reminisces on "the olden days," his eyes twinkle with his love for the work gleaming through.

When Durand went to work for his brother at age 15, he had already been around his father's business long enough to know how a logging job was operated. He said going into the woods for his brother was just like second nature and that he picked up the work with no problems.

Durand worked with his brother for several years before taking a job as woods foreman with Southern Timber Company, and later, S&F Timber Company. Durand calls those days his first encounters as "the bossman in the woods." But he adds that although the assignment was supervision, he did a lot of the work himself.

"I did some of the same things then that I do now on my own jobs," he said. "When I got out there on location, I couldn't stay away from the work."

After awhile as woods foreman, Durand decided it was time to get back into the actual logging again. SO he went back to work for his brother until he was ready to start his own operation, which he did in 1970.

He began with one skidder, one loader, and three men on a job near Whitehall for Pineville Kraft. Since then, he has been operating his business successfully throughout Central Louisiana, logging pulpwood and timber as effectively and efficiently as possible. On his most productive day, he said, he cut 115 cords of pulpwood.

Knowing the limits of every man and every machine is one of Durand's keys to successful operation on a job. By knowing those limits, Durand said, he can be sure of how much work to expect daily.

"If you don't know what men or your machinery dan do," Durand said, "You're going to wind up getting shortchanged. I know where to put the right man with the right machine."

Durand is currently working with all John Deere Machines. He uses two 640 grapple skidders on location for all the hauling, rolling, and dragging of timber. That include the work involved in pushing the logs through a limberizer gate to cut off the limbs from the timber.

His JD544 loader, equipped with a cutting shear, clears small trees and brush that are missed in the first cutting.

Durand says the equipment does a good, clean job. But he thinks warmly about the old days of using mules. "I still have a place in my heart for mules. But that's yesterday, and we can't dwell on yesterday," he said.

A resident of Pollock, Durand worked a job near Jena for International Paper on a weekly quote. Quotas and pay rates are determined not only by the company, but by the economic situation of the nation and the industry.

Even on quota, Durand's efficiency doesn't falter. A trucker working form him this summer totaled 700 miles hauling in one day during a quote job.

Durand gives credit to his crew for the quality work they do by treating them well and paying them well, he said. "If we make any extra money, I pay the crew first, right off the top. I like to pay a man his worth, and my men put out their best. That's another reason my business has kept going.

In today's technologically oriented society, Durand doesn't worry about machines taking over the jobs of men.

"A man once told me that equipment was going to take over," Durand said. "I said equipment wouldn't and couldn't run itself. You must have a man with common sense to run it. Then you can get full work power from both the machinery and the man."

Mr. Durand was forced to retire in 1990, after suffering a stroke. The business he started is now owned by his older son, Owen Durand, Jr.

Sharon Sparkman, author of this slightly edited 1981 article, was promotions manager for Norwel Equipment Co., of Shreveport, John Deere dealership now owned by Doggett Machinery Company.

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