Randall C. Procell lives quietly on a shady spot midway down Ebarb street in Zwolle, Louisiana, where he has spent a lifetime cutting, scaling, or hauling logs in the western Louisiana forest near and along the Sabine River that makes the border with East Texas.

At 73, he will be recognized as the "Oldest Logger" at the annual Zwolle Loggers and Forestry Festival at Zwolle May 8-9, an honor that he is pleased with in his generally calm manner.

Randall is a son of Alfred and Emmelee Castie Procell. His father was a logger with Mansfield Hardwood Lumber Company, and promised his son a job with him in the woods if he wanted it when he turned 18. When the time came, Randall went to work as a helper with Robert A. Randolph. In one of the rough spots which happen in the log woods, Randolph was killed by a falling tree, and soon Randall partnered with a cousin, Norbert Procell.

Randall learned to scale, and worked most of the rest of his career as a scaler, working in Sabine, DeSoto parishes, and East Texas. One of the big jobs was the clearing of the bottoms along the Sabine River for the flooding of what is now the Toledo Bend Reservoir.

He was drafted and served in the U.S. Army from 1953 through 1960, when he returned to the logging business, working under boss Jim Isgit.

When Mansfield Hardwood Lumber was taken over by Willamette, Randall worked for the new company, and continues to work under the Weyerhaeuser ownership of the plywood mill in Zwolle. He and a team of younger workers monitor the computerized scaling system on the Weyerhaeuser yard in Zwolle.

He was married to Ellawese Manchac, who preceded him in death in 1994 with complications from diabetes.

Randall is proud that in 47 years of working at various jobs in the woods industry he has not had an accident. His health remains good, and while he enjoyed fishing and outdoor activities with his wife, now that she is gone, he doesn't get out much anymore.

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