| Forest Festival set in
Winnfield April 26-27 A variety of new events - including racing lawn mower displays - are on the program for the annual Louisiana Forest Festival in Winnfield April 26-27. Also on tap are the usual woods skill contests, including equipment operation and professional timber sports. On opening day, a special ceremony in downtown Winnfield will precede the Festival parade, showing off the newest forestry equipment, civic floats, and other units. From downtown, the parade will head for the Festival headquarters at the Winn Parish Fair Grounds on state highway 34 south of Winnfield. Lawn mower races begin on the Main Street side of the Winn Court House in the afternoon. Festival promoters say these machines are not your everyday grass cutters, but "souped up" riding mowers with plenty of muscle. Worth seeing, they say. Two major events will cap off the evening of the first day - first, the annual membership meeting and banquet of the Louisiana Loggers Association, based in Winnfield. Besides the usual buffet feast, the event features announcement of the Association's Logger of the Year, safety awards for loggers without woods accidents during the past year, and reports on the status of the Association's Self Insured Fund. Public entertainment for the evening is the LRCA-sanctioned rodeo, at the Fair Grounds arena. Day two begins early, at 7 a.m., with registration for the road race and 5K walk, and for the Timber Sports competition. The Festival "midway" opens at 8 a.m., with arts and crafts displays, logging and other equipment displays, food booths, commercial booths and entertainment, forestry competitive skills, antique tractor show, antique truck show, display of racing lawn mowers. World champions from across the country appear regularly in the professional timber sports events, including power saw operation, crosscut saw contests, and chopping competition. Other woods related events include 4-H woodsman skills, truck rodeo, skidder competition, loader competition. The Festival will wind down with the awards banquet
for timber sports competition, and finally, night two of
the LRCA rodeo. |