August 2024
HEBRON, Maryland – Coming from a family that has worked in the woods for generations, Scottie Robertson, 50, has been around the logging business all his life. His grandfather mixed sawmilling with farming nearly 100 years ago. Scottie’s dad, James Robertson, followed in those footsteps; he also split his time with farming when he first started logging in 1969. James bought his first new skidder in 1973 and continued logging full-time for 50 years before he retired.
Inside This Issue
COVER: All In
HEBRON, Maryland – Not too infrequently, loggers who live near state borderlines find themselves harvesting timber and hauling to mills in two or more states beyond the one in which they live. Such is the case for Franklin D. “Frankie” Eure, 59. His company, F.D. Eure, Inc., a Maryland-based outfit, operates throughout the Virginia/Maryland/Delaware region around the Chesapeake Bay. When Southern Loggin’ Times caught up with Eure and his crew in April, they were working a tract on the Delmarva Peninsula near the eastern shores of Virginia and Maryland.
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
SOUTHERN STUMPIN': Women!
It’s August, which means football is right around the corner again, but also, August is when the U.S. draws attention to the progress women have made in our society. August 26 is Women’s Equality Day, a date chosen in 1971 to commemorate the adoption on August 20, 1920 of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
FROM THE BACKWOODS PEW: High Bid
The essence, or driving factor, of forestry in the Southeast is usually the timber sale. Most sales are done by placing a “blind” bid. This bid is kept secret from everyone until the envelopes are handed to the consultant at a specific time and place. When the clock strikes the advertised hour, he opens and reads each bid. The landowner has an idea of what he thinks it is worth and so does everyone else. The timber sale process starts with you, the consumer. A mud house or igloo would be fine for some folks, but you have always wanted a nice cottage by the lake. To build it, you hire a carpenter. The carpenter needs wood: two by fours, two by sixes, several wide boards, plywood, cabinets, and sub-flooring. He calls a woodyard, who calls a mill, who calls the forester.
Excerpted from Trees, Traps, and Truth, Bradley Antill, author
INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP
- LanzaJet SAF Gains Additional Funding
- Weyerhaeuser Curtails New Bern Sawmill
- Georgia Forestry Tracks Pine Beetle Impact
MACHINES-SUPPLIES-TECHNOLOGY
- Tigercat Upgrades Carbonizer
- Logmeter Returns With Carbotech
All In
Frankie Eure focuses less on production and more on doing right by the land.
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
HEBRON, Maryland – Not too infrequently, loggers who live near state borderlines find themselves harvesting timber and hauling to mills in two or more states beyond the one in which they live. Such is the case for Franklin D. “Frankie” Eure, 59. His company, F.D. Eure, Inc., a Maryland-based outfit, operates throughout the Virginia/Maryland/Delaware region around the Chesapeake Bay. When Southern Loggin’ Times caught up with Eure and his crew in April, they were working a tract on the Delmarva Peninsula near the eastern shores of Virginia and Maryland.
Logging is a Eure family tradition that goes back a few generations. Eure’s father, Frank, Sr., and grandfather, Parish, started their company, Eure Logging, way back in the day. Over the years it continued to grow, branching out as new generations of Eures grew up in the family business. Frankie started spending his summers in the woods after elementary school. As a teenager he’d work in the woods after school until dark, as did his uncle Steve and his cousin Tim, both of whom are on the crew with him today. He went to work full-time at Eure Logging right after graduating high school. After years of working for his dad, Frankie started his own company, F.D. Eure, Inc., in 1991, when he was 26.
“It’s just a family job,” Eure says of his company today. “Steve is my uncle, my dad’s brother, but he’s only two years older than me, and Tim is my cousin.” Along with Frankie, Steve and Tim Eure, one non-family member, Brian Lowe, rounds out the crew in the woods. But Frankie is careful to refer to them all as coworkers, not employees. “I’ve always said no one works for me, they work with me,” he explains. “We’re all in it together.”
Loader man Steve Eure has been working with his big brother’s son for about 15 years, since leaving his previous job at Eastern Shore Forest Products. Cutter driver Tim Eure used to log for himself but has been with his cousin around 10 years. Brian Lowe also left his job at the Pixelle Specialty Solutions wood yard a few years ago to come man a skidder for Eure.
Eure’s dad, Frank, Sr., 83, also worked with his son on the crew, manning a cutter, until recently, when he’s had to spend more time at home caring for his wife, whose health has declined. In fact, both Eure’s stepmother and his mother have Alzheimer’s. “We’re double cursed,” the logger states.
But the family is also very blessed. Eure and his wife Donna have been married 20 years, sharing two sons and two daughters from previous marriages: Sarah, 30, and Candace Eure, 31, and Corey, 38, and Robert Jones, 40.
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