Joe McDonald, 77, of Noble, Sabine Parish, Lousiana, will be recognized as the Oldest Logger at the 11th annual Zwolle Loggers and Forestry Festival on May 14.

Mr. McDonald was born in adjacent DeSoto parish, a grew up around Converse in Sabine, where his family were farmers and woods workers. He began working in the woods in 1943, and his career includes cutting logs with a crosscut saw, skidding with a mule team, plus the work he did for the longest time, driving log and chip trucks until his retirement two years ago.

Before today's mechanized logging equipment became the way logging is done, Mr. McDonald recalls that logs were loaded on trucks with mule power, using a series of chains to roll the logs up an inclined skid pole. During his early days of hauling, he recalls hauling large pine long, some of which would scale 1,000 board feet each, and three of which made a truckload.

One of his early and longer lasting jobs was with Rogers & Evans Lumber Co., of Converse. The company had a sawmill, and McDonald worked in the woods. The foreman, he calls, was William Bennett, and workers he recalls were Albert Malmay and his brother Ed Malmay, Melvin Sepulvado, known as Big Doug, and Johnny Ebarb, Jr.

At one point he worked for Wilson Tatum in a crosstie mill at Benton, and later in shipyards in Orange, Texas. He entered the U.S. Army briefly in 1945, entering at Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas. He served at Ft. Joseph T. Robinson in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and briefly at Ft. Ord, California, and Pittsburg, California, before being sent back to Camp Shelby at Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1946 for discharge after the end of World War II.

In 1947 he began hauling logs for Rogers & Evans. For a ten-hour day, he earned $3.50 per day, later $5.50 per day, making two to three loads driving a 1947 Ford 700 log truck.

During his driving career, Mr. McDonald spent one four-year period driving crude oil trucks for Scurlock Oil Co. in Louisiana. He came back to Zwolle from 1961-1971, hauling for Hunt Lumber Co.

At the time of his retirement two years ago, he was hauling for Harold Stewart.

Mr. McDonald and his wife Ruby are the parents of six sons and one daughter. They have 15 grandchildren and 24 great grandchildren.

Two of the sons are loggers, Alvin McDonald and James H. McDonald, who drive fuel chip trucks; Calvin, a twin of Alvin, a Many sheet metal worker; David, of Tenaha, Texas, a cross-country truck driver; Douglas, an oil field construction equipment operator; and Joseph Paul, who was killed some years ago when a poultry truck he was driving came into contact with an electric line while being loaded, electrocuting him.

The daughter, Patricia Ann Lamphy, is a housewife in Center, Texas. One of the 15 grandchildren, Wayne, son of Calvin, is a log hauler.

Presentation of the Oldest Logger award will be made at the Saturday morning program at the Zwolle Festival Grounds pavilion.

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