By James Ronald Skains
Journal Correspondent

``Actually, I started my career in the woods pushing stumps with a dozer,'' Jimmy Galloway, the fourth Galloway generation logger told the Piney Woods Journal. ``My Dad, J. P. who is now in his eighties and I worked together many years stumping before going strictly into logging. I've been logging now for thirty-seven years.''

``When the weather is good, I still bring my Dad out to our jobs from time to time,'' Jimmy Galloway pointed out. ``He was still logging well into his seventies, until he had a stroke.''

On the other hand, the other Co-Logger of the Year, Jimmy's 41 year old son Greg has only been logging since he was a teenager.

``With the insurance the way it is now, you can't start working in the woods early on like we did,'' Greg, who actually took a few months off from logging to try a semester of college at Northwestern State University before hurriedly returning to the woods, pointed out. ``It didn't take long for me to realize that my calling was in the logging woods.''

``Actually we were astonished at being selected Logger of the Year,'' Jimmy's other business partner, as well as his life partner, wife Barbara told the Journal. ``We are just a small family logging business sort of staying under the radar.  I know that we are efficient in what we do because I keep up with the books and what we spend and make, but we were truly surprised at being selected.''

However, two other people have been very impressed for years by the Galloway logging operation.  The Galloway's were nominated by Wesley Taylor and Brian Stuart owners of Fortune Forest Products. Both Wesley and Brian are Louisiana Tech Forestry School graduates.

``We've known Brian for several years and when he would move to another company, we would follow,'' Greg Galloway explained. ``We are real pleased to haul logs for Wesley and Stuart. We consider ourselves as independent loggers because we are not tied in with a large company although a lot of our hauls are to Boise in DeRidder.''

``I actually live close to the back entrance to the Boise mill, '' Jimmy Galloway noted.

``Greg used to live close by until he moved to downtown DeRidder.''

``After my oldest son, Drew beginning playing baseball, Dana and I figured out pretty quick that we were going to be meeting ourselves coming and going  by  trying to get Drew to practice and games living away from town,'' Greg explained. ``And with three younger boys, Shane, Tate, and Trace coming on, we knew that things we going only going to get more complicated with our schedules.''

Drew, who did play baseball at LSU-Eunice is now in his early twenties and is concentrating on a degree in Business in College.

``Drew showed some interest in the woods although I didn't encourage it,'' Greg admitted. ``The younger boys seem to get a lot of their excitement and adventure from playing video games instead of out in the woods.''

``Growing up, the ultimate excitement and adventure for me was to go out on the logging job with Dad,'' Greg stated.  ``Just being on the job was an adventure and when I got the chance to run a skidder, I was on cloud nine. The younger boys do show some interest in the woods but I don't encourage it because logging is getting so tough.''

"Logger of the Year" in the Galloway family is not exactly a new thing as J. P. Galloway was selected by the LFA as Logger of the year twenty-five years ago in 1980.

``I'm looking forward to going to the LFA convention in New Orleans,'' Jimmy Galloway admitted. ``Neither Greg nor I have been to an LFA convention before. Both New Orleans and a LFA convention during the middle of the week is something totally different than we experience on a daily basis out in the woods.''

``We are really a small but very efficient operation,'' Greg Galloway said in elaborating about their operation. ``Dad and I both work on the job, me on a skidder and Dad mostly on the loader. We run mostly Tiger-Cat equipment but recently bought a John Deere skidder from Nortrax because of fuel economy.''

``We also have a three wheel Bell Shear which we have found over the years is excellent for cutting hardwood,'' Greg continued. ``We bought the Bell from Mr. Dean up in Saline. We run three trucks, a Freight Liner, a KW and Mack. They are old but paid for. We also have an old International to use as a spare and to help when we are moving.''

``Two of our crew, Jerry Slaydon and Jeff Moon have been with us for twenty-two years,'' Greg pointed.  ``I'm the skidder driver and lead mechanic.  We do all our own mechanical work except for major overhauls.''

Before there was J.P. Galloway the logging contractor, there was Paul Galloway his father, and his grandfather Martin Galloway.

``The Galloway family as far back as anyone can remember has been associated with logging and sawmills,'' fourth generation logger Jimmy Galloway noted. ``When my Dad and I were pushing stumps, it was a very enjoyable time in my life.  Before the stumps completely played out, we were hauling our stumps to the other side of Pensacola, Florida.''

``I'm not sure why the second forest, as it is called, doesn't produce stumps the way the virgin timber did,'' Jimmy Galloway said. ``A round trip to Pensacola was an all day affair.''

``I did work off-shore for a few months years ago when logging got real tight, '' Jimmy Galloway admitted. ``I didn't do that for a long time, but  only  for a few months until things loosened up in the logging business and I was right back in the woods.''

``I love being in the logging business,'' Jimmy Galloway noted. ``My wife and I fish together a good bit. There are several good fishing places around here plus Toledo Bend Lake is not very far from us.  My wife and also like to take vacations from time to time, but for the most part we focus on our logging business.''

Greg has a sister Angela who operates a Daycare Center in nearby Merryville which is close to Sabine River in southwest Louisiana. Between their two siblings, Jimmy and Barbara Galloway have six grandkids, all boys.  Will there be a sixth generation Galloway family logger? That's debatable.

But perhaps the Beauregard Galloway family has achieved a new place in the LFA Logger of the Year archives by having three consecutive generations honored as Louisiana's Logger of the Year!

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