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CapitalPress.com
May 8, 2015
People & Places
Education a passion for California logger
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
VIOLA, Calif. — As a
group of seventh-graders
looked at a fire bulldozer
during a field trip at a log-
ging site, Larry Strawn asked
them how many played video
games.
Most of the youngsters
raised their hands.
“Tell your parents you’re
practicing for your career,”
said Strawn, owner of Blue
Ridge Forest Management in
Redding, Calif.
In reality, Strawn tries to
limit the hours his grandkids
spend on video games. But
educating future generations
about the timber industry has
always been a top priority, and
computers and video technol-
ogy are a wave of the future.
Operating machines is “all
hand-eye coordination, just
like with a video game,” the
70-year-old Strawn told the
youngsters from Evergreen
School in Cottonwood, Calif.
Strawn was instrumental in
starting education days in the
woods in the early ’90s, work-
ing with a long-time employ-
ee, Delbert Gannon, who later
became his business partner.
It was a time of change and
contraction for the timber in-
dustry, as the federal listing of
the northern spotted owl and
other environmental regula-
tions were causing upheaval.
Loggers began to realize it
was important to tell the pub-
lic what really goes on at log-
ging sites, they have said.
“The first class was eight,”
Strawn said. “We did that for
a number of years with Sierra
Pacific (Industries) and Blue
Ridge and it grew to about
200.”
Enter the Sierra Cascade
Logging Conference, with
which Strawn has been in-
volved for more than 20
years. The annual Anderson,
Calif., gathering in February
began to include an auction
dinner to raise funds for ed-
ucational activities, including
the springtime field trips to an
active logging site.
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Logger Larry Strawn stands near a stroke delimber he had rebuilt after it was burned in a fire two
years ago. Strawn started holding education days in the woods in the early 1990s, and now the annual
event draws about 600 schoolchildren from around Northern California.
Western Innovator
Larry Strawn
Age: 70
Occupation: Logger
Residence: Redding, Calif.
Family: Wife, Trish; children Sandi,
Sheri and Mike Strawn; eight grandchildren; one great-grandson
“It was hard to get kids to
come up here because schools
are so strapped for funds
that they couldn’t come up,”
Strawn said. “Now we fund
the buses.”
This year, more than 600
elementary through high
school students attended the
lessons and demonstrations
at a logging site in a meadow
near Viola, about 40 miles
east of Redding, on April 29
and 30.
Each year, the students vis-
it about 15 stations learning
about various aspects of log-
ging, including maintaining
water quality near sites, how
various equipment is used and
how forests are replanted after
timber sales.
“There’s career opportuni-
ties out here,” said Gannon,
owner of Creekside Logging
Co. in Redding.
Often, the annual field days
have specific themes. For in-
stance, students two years ago
visited a salvage logging op-
eration in an area burned by
the 2012 Ponderosa Fire, a
nearly 30,000-acre blaze that
swept through miles of brush
and timber and forced evacu-
ations of three mountain com-
munities.
The burn areas provided
a backdrop to inform stu-
dents about wildfires and the
efforts to restore forests in
their aftermath. Students saw
a demonstration of felling
what was left of some trees,
watched as charred bark was
scraped from logs that were
later loaded onto a truck,
and heard firefighters from
the California Department of
Forestry and Fire Protection
discuss the behavior of wild-
fires.
This year, presenters —
which included crew mem-
bers from Blue Ridge, Sierra
Pacific and Creekside as well
as representatives from Shas-
ta College in Redding and Cal
Fire — stressed the growing
role that computers and tech-
nology are playing in the in-
dustry.
“It’s just great to interact
with grade school kids and
get them seeing what they can
do in the forestry industry,”
said John Livingston, a heavy
equipment instructor at Shasta
College, who’s been present-
ing at the field day for the past
three years.
The field trip is one of sev-
eral education-related events
hosted by the logging con-
ference, which also brings as
many as 800 fourth-graders
to its large-equipment expo
at the Shasta District Fair-
grounds each year.
College students hold
logging sports competitions
during the logging conference
while FFA members test their
knowledge of forestry. Sier-
ra Pacific also sends teams
to festivals and fairs to teach
kids about the many uses of
wood, and last fall the timber
giant hosted a tour for adults
at its Anderson mill.
But one of the biggest
events of the year is the field
trip to the woods.
“This is Sierra Cascade’s
highest priority — education
for young kids,” Strawn said.
A Redding
resident,
Strawn spent lots of time in
the woods as a boy helping his
father, who was also a logger.
“I didn’t think there was
much of a future in it,” he
said. “I took a job driving a
low-bed truck. I made three
times the money I had made
logging and was miserable.”
In 1969, a friend had “an
old junk Cat and I bought a
junk loader and we were part-
ners for a year,” Strawn said.
The friend moved to Idaho
and Strawn stayed in Red-
ding.
Gannon, 43, worked for
Strawn for 20 years before
his mentor started pondering
retirement and helped him
start Creekside. Work for Blue
Ridge is slowly being phased
out, Strawn said.
The two still believe
there’s a future in logging,
they said.
“It’s a good industry to get
into right now, just like farm-
ing,” Strawn said. “Delbert
and I felt that with kids’ edu-
cation in school, logging just
had a bad name. We wanted
to get the word out that we’re
here to stay. It’s a natural re-
source.
“We’re trying to get high
school students to make a ca-
reer out of it,” he said.
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Basketball tradition returns with next generation
By RYAN M. TAYLOR
For the Capital Press
T
OWNER, N.D. — I
suppose it’s common
for parents to try to
recreate parts of their own
childhood for their children.
If we grew up with a pony,
we try to get our kids a pony.
If we had a treehouse that we
loved, we help nail one up
in the backyard for our own
little climbers. Of course,
children aren’t necessarily
replicas of their parents, but
we do our best to give them
that chance!
If our children take up the
sport of basketball, I’ll remind
them to follow their mother’s
cues on the court and not my
own. She’s the one in the
family with the letter win-
ner’s jacket, a couple trips to
the Class B state tournament
in high school, and a year of
court time at college.
Cowboy
Logic
Ryan Taylor
‘Country ball’
Myself, I never played
“town ball,” but I did play
some “country ball.” Country
basketball in my neighbor-
hood was a pretty rag-tag af-
fair. My neighbors and I had
hoops with wavy plywood
backboards in our yards. Ours
was on turf and their hoop
was on gravel, so we usually
played there.
Sometimes, we’d go down
to Doug’s. He had a hoop in
the hay mow of their barn.
You could feel the hay mow
floor kind of undulate under
your feet as you drove in for
the lay-up. If you didn’t let
that unnerve you, and you
were careful for the boards
that stuck up a little high, it
was a pretty good court.
Eventually, our country
ball got organized to the point
where we adopted a name, the
Smokey Lake Lakers, in hon-
or of a large, putrid alkali lake
in the area. We were the lo-
cal Lakers. Some of the team
members took a high school
home economics course and
used their sewing time to
make team sweatpants for all
of us. Aqua blue and algae
green were our official colors.
Slam dunks
As we became more offi-
cial, we adopted a new home
court. We moved into the Ber-
wick Town Hall. Berwick had
ceased being an incorporated
town, but the community of
about 10 souls and several
dogs still had a hall with a
hardwood floor, a couple of
hoops, and a stage that facil-
itated our reverse slam dunks
as we practiced some hang
time coming off the stage be-
hind the hoop.
Alas, as things go, the Ber-
wick Hall is no longer an op-
tion for my kids. Doug’s barn
was torn down and my hoop
with the plywood backboard
has toppled. My wife said our
kids need a basketball hoop. I
told her I’d go look for a sal-
vaged highline pole and I’d
even buy a brand new piece of
plywood.
She went online and be-
fore I knew it a truck pulled
in the yard with some fancy,
schmancy steel pole, an offset
glass backboard, a dunkable
rim, and some assembly re-
quired. I accepted it. Better
than video games, I said, and
I commenced assembling.
I followed the instructions,
right down to the 25 bags of
concrete and a few sticks of
rebar stuck in the hole I dug to
secure the base.
Shooting hoops
The instructions ada-
mantly stated it would take
“at least four capable adults”
to hoist up and attach the
backboard. Me, my wife and
a passing neighbor pulled
it off with ease, proving, I
guess, our superior capabil-
ities.
I have to say that the stur-
dy pole, the glass backboard
and the concrete driveway
are pretty inviting. The kids
are getting ready a little
quicker in the morning so
they can shoot a few hoops
before the school bus comes,
and their mother joins them
for a little coaching.
Me, I’ll get out there,
too. But first I need to find
my aqua blue Smokey Lake
Laker sweatpants. Then,
while the kids are laughing at
me, I’ll drive in for the easy
game-winning lay-up.
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Calendar
Spokane Junior Livestock Show
Market Sale, 8 a.m. Spokane
County Fair and Expo Center,
one-day market sale for swine,
goats, lambs and steers.
Online ......www.capitalpress.com/classifieds
19th Annual Distillers Grains Sym-
posium, 7 a.m.-11 p.m. Sheraton
Crown Center, Kansas City, Mo.
Ore., 541-737-6272. Insectary
plantings in commercial orchards.
There will be opportunities to
practice field ID of native plants
used in insectary plantings and
beneficial insects associated with
them. Farmer hosts will share
practical tips and challenges. The
course will be at Omeg Family
Orchards and Dahle Orchards.
Participants must provide own
transportation. Drew Merritt,
co-owner of Humble Roots Farm
and Nursery; Gwendolyn Ellen,
Farmscaping for Beneficials coor-
dinator; and farmers Mike Omeg
and Tim Dahle will co-lead.
Thursday, May 14
19th Annual Distillers Grains Sym-
posium, 7 a.m.-11 p.m. Sheraton
Crown Center, Kansas City, Mo.
Washington FFA Convention, 8 a.m.,
Washington State University, Pullman.
a.m., Washington State University,
Pullman.
PerryDale Parents Club Taste of
Italy Dinner and Auction, 4-9 p.m.
Polk County Fairgrounds, Rickreall,
503 932-0558. Fundraiser to
supplement educational needs of
students.
Wednesday, May 20
Seafood HACCP Segment II, 8: 30
Washington FFA Convention, 8
a.m., Washington State University,
Pullman.
a.m.-5 p.m., University of Idaho,
Boise, 208-364-6188. For sea-
food processor personnel who
develop, reassess and modify
the HACCP plans and manage
verification activities.
Saturday, May 16
Thursday, May 21
Washington FFA Convention, 8
Food Allergen Workshop, 8: 30
Friday, May 15
a.m.-4:30 p.m., Holiday Inn,
Yakima, Wash., 360-902-1961.
Food allergen workshop for
processors, retailers, consultants,
sanitarians, regulators.
Saturday, June 13
Sheep in the Foothills, 10 a.m.-1
p.m. Boise Foothills Learning
Center, Boise.
Saturday, June 20
Ketchum Kalf Rodeo, 1-9 p.m.
Glenwood, Wash.
Sunday, June 21
Washington Potato and Onion
Association Annual Convention,
8 a.m.-9 p.m. Northern Quest
Casino, Airway Heights,
Wash.
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Water ..................................... 5
Wolves .................................. 4