By JAMES RONALD SKAINS

The Travis Taylor "Logging Challenge" has been set for the weekend of September 21-23 at the Southern Forest Heritage Museum at Long Leaf in south Rapides parish. The Logging Challenge is being organized by longtime North Central Louisiana Logger, Travis Taylor, as a benefit fund-raiser for the Children's Miracle Network under the Log-a-Load For Kids and the Southern Forest Heritage Museum.

Taylor told the Piney Woods Journal that his reasons for organizing a statewide Loggers Challenge were quite simple. "Every time a group of loggers get together, sooner or later they are going to start talking about what a good logger they are. So I think it is about time that we settled these `bragging rights' on the logging field with some real live logging competition for a worthy cause - children's Miracle Network and the Forest Heritage Museum."

The Travis Taylor Logging Challenge is being organized in a format whereby the qualifying round of Logging Competition will take place around the state on the home turf of those Loggers who participate in the Challenge.

The loggers with the best scores in the live logging competition from various areas of the state will then be invited to come to Long Leaf on Saturday, September 22 to compete in the final round of competition.

On how the fund-raising project for the Children's Miracle Network and Forestry Museum will actually work, Taylor said, "We are looking for the loggers who participate to donate their cut and haul rate on the load of logs they harvest in the competition. We also want the landowner and the mill who buys the logs to donate an equal amount of money on each load of logs harvested around the state in this competition. So we really will be Logging-a-Load For the Kids and the Forestry Museum."

Taylor, the newly elected Louisiana Logging Council vice president, will take office for a one-year term at the annual LLC/LFA meeting in Lafayette in August, and will succeed Dennis Aucoin as president in 2002. Taylor, LLC's Logger of the Year in 1997, by virtue of his new office will serve on the American Loggers Council, attending his first meeting with current LLC president Dennis Aucoin of Clinton in July in Kalispell, Montana.

Trophies, plaques, and other prizes will be awarded to those area ranking loggers who are selected based on their competition performance for the championship round at Long Leaf, which is the home of the old Crowell Sawmill that is being restored into a Forestry Museum. Additional trophies and prizes will be awarded during the Championship round of the Logging Challenge.

In addition to the finals of the Challenge to be held at Long Leaf, Taylor, a 1967 graduate of Louisiana Tech's School of Forestry has designated Friday, September 22 as Forestry Skills Competition Day. "On Friday, we plan on having three levels of competition in Forestry skills," Taylor explained. "First will be the High School Forestry Skills division. Then we are planning a University Level Forestry skills competition. We have asked Louisiana Tech to be the host school for this level of the competition."

"Also, we are developing a Professional level of competition in Forestry skills for those graduate Foresters who are now working in the industry either as independent consultants or for one of the companies."

On Saturday, September 22, other individual logging skills competition will be held on the site of the old Crowell Lumber Sawmill which is almost intact but in much need of restoration work. Log skidding and log loading are on the agenda along with sawing contest both crosscut and chainsaw. The crosscut saw division competition will also have a "Jack and Jill" section for male and female teams of cross-cutters.

The log skidding contest will consist of skidding logs from point A location to point B location in a timely and efficient manner. However, the log loading competition will focus more on precision loading and will actually involve a segment of loading a log truck.

Also on the agenda is an open truck driving competition. This contest will showcase a driver's skill at manipulating a truck and trailer around a designated course along with backing and parking driving skills.

"Dennis Aucoin has been doing a good job leading the charge for raising money for the Children's Miracle Network down in southeast Louisiana with fishing and golf tournaments," Taylor pointed out. "But the rest of us loggers, especially up here in north and central Louisiana, have not been doing that great of job for worthy causes such as the Children's Miracle network and the old Museum. So I think it is time that we got involved by doing what we do best - cutting and hauling logs."

The Southern Forest Heritage Museum sawmill location is the old Crowell sawmill town of Long Leaf which is 22 miles south of Alexandria and 3.5 miles from Forest Hill, which is known as the Nursery capitol of Louisiana. The 1910-era Crowell Lumber Company sawmill, which replaced the original mill built in the 1890's, shut down in 1969.

The Heritage Museum is a Louisiana Forestry Association project that started in 1995 toward its goal of restoring the old sawmill town to a Museum status to showcase the Louisiana Forest industry.

The Crowell family donated the 57 acres of land and all the old sawmill buildings to the non-profit organization that operates the facilities. Included in the donation from the Crowell family in addition to the land and buildings were three non-operable steam locomotives, two ancient 1919 year McGiffert steam-powered log loaders and a Clyde built steam powered log skidder.

The old steam locomotive engines pulled the rolling stock for the Crowell owned Red River & Gulf railroad that operated in Central Louisiana. The group that is operating the Heritage Museum and spearheading the restoration work at Long Leaf has successfully restored the Commissary building to first class condition and now houses a wide display of Sawmill town memorabilia.

Clyde Todd of the LFA who is also on the Logging Challenge Planning Committee told the Journal, "We are excited about this Logging Challenge being organized by Travis that will benefit not only the Museum but also the Children's Miracle Network that does such a great job in helping kids with serious medical problems."

"We are planning events during the Logging Challenge so that we can give those loggers attending the Challenge continuing education credits under the Master Logger program," Todd pointed out. "We want to have some people on hand who can talk about the Motor Carrier Safety program and its impact on the logging industry. I think that Sonny Mills and the state OSHA Partnership people will be at the Challenge, which will give everyone the opportunity for obtaining specific information."

Bill Wieger of Martin Timber Company, who is also on the Challenge planning committee and is helping formulate the rules and regulations for the actual in-the-woods logging competition had this to say about the up-coming Event: "This is going to be a fun time to see how well loggers can do in cutting, skidding, and loading a load of logs under competition rules. We feel that we can formulate the contest rules and regs so that the loggers who participate can be monitored on their home turf in the preliminary round under basically equal logging conditions."

Leann Anderson, the Zwolle Loggers Festival Queen for the year 2000, has been selected to represent the first annual Loggers Challenge in a public relations role. Leann, a native of Zwolle, which is a beehive of logging activity and now a student at Northwestern State University, attended more than 40 other Festivals around the state during her year-long reign as Zwolle Loggers Festival Queen.

"We have a full agenda of events for everyone lined up Friday night, all day Saturday and Sunday," Travis Taylor said. "We plan on having entertainment for Friday night, Saturday, and Christian music on Sunday along with Arts and Craft exhibits and plenty of food outlets for the general public."

"We are looking at staging a `Miss Hardhat' contest which would be open to any ladies who work in jobs which require them to wear a hardhat," Taylor said. "We would like to generate enough interest to hold a music and singing talent contest along with an old-time fiddlers