February 2025
HOT SPRINGS, Arkansas — Fifth generation Arkansas logger Greg Bates, continues to carry on a family tradition passed down to him by his ancestors on both sides of his family, including his father Haskel, left, who at 85 still drives a skidder for his son. Bates enjoys a mutually beneficial and longstanding partnership with timber dealer No Way Pulpwood, which is owned by an old friend from his youthful “mullet” days in the early ’80s.
Inside This Issue
COVER: Living Legacy
HOT SPRINGS, Arkansas — Like many of his peers, Greg Bates, 61, can trace his roots in the woods back a long ways, and in his case, not just on one side of the family. In fact, this fifth generation logger has sawdust in his DNA from both his parents. Greg’s dad, Haskel Bates, goes back to the mule logging days (and at 85, he’s still at it, though no longer with livestock). And on his mom’s side, Greg’s grandfather was also a mule logger…and later drove a skidder for his son-in-law Haskel.
Article by Patrick Dunning, Associate Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
SOUTHERN STUMPIN': Driverless Trucks?
Military defense contractor Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has entered the forestry arena with a plan to combat ongoing commercial driver shortages throughout North America’s agricultural sector by adapting its unmanned air- and land-based systems currently utilized in military markets to support internal timber supply chains wherever needed.
Article by Patrick Dunning
BACKWOODS PEW: Forestry Apocalypse
If you are hoping for some glimpse as to the end of the world, you may be disappointed. Or maybe the forest industry in your part of the country would seem to be headed towards some disastrous event. Perhaps you skipped to this chapter because you like horses, and the whole “four horsemen of the apocalypse” image in Scripture is intriguing to you. That being said, let’s saddle up and look at four disasters that hit the forest, and let’s make sure they don’t slip in on you and me in our spiritual lives.
Bradley Antill, author, excerpted from Trees, Traps and Truth
INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP
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- USDA Begins Loan Program
- Major Weyerhaeuser EWP Investment
- New OSB Project Gains Permitting
- W.Va. Hardwood Mills Up For Sale
- Homan Rebrands Tri-State Lumber
- Ardis Almond Led Family Business
- 60 for 60: Bob’s Big Birthday Bash
- Vermeer SE Gets Pinnacle Award
- Deere Offers Extended Coverage
Living Legacy
Logging roots run deep for fifth generation timber harvester Greg Bates.
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
HOT SPRINGS, Arkansas — Like many of his peers, Greg Bates, 61, can trace his roots in the woods back a long ways, and in his case, not just on one side of the family. In fact, this fifth generation logger has sawdust in his DNA from both his parents. Greg’s dad, Haskel Bates, goes back to the mule logging days (and at 85, he’s still at it, though no longer with livestock). And on his mom’s side, Greg’s grandfather was also a mule logger…and later drove a skidder for his son-in-law Haskel.
With that kind of breeding, it’s no surprise that Greg Bates started going to the woods with his dad at a young age, and worked on a crew as a teenager more than 40 years ago. After a year at what was then Garland County Community College (now National Park College) in Hot Springs, Greg came back to the woods to drive a log truck for his dad. After a few years of that, Greg bought his first log truck of his own when he was 21 in 1984, and continued hauling off of Haskel’s logging job.
Trucking was really his first passion in his youth, especially Peterbilt trucks. He did branch off and start his own separate logging operation, and kept adding more trucks. When Weyerhaeuser started their dispatch system, Greg set himself up as a trucking contractor in the program. His 15- truck fleet handled the bulk of all the dispatch hauling for Weyerhaeuser in the Jessieville area north of Hot Springs, feeding the company’s plywood/veneer mill in Mountain Pine.
That was a good deal, until Weyerhaeuser closed that mill in late 2006. “That put the whammy on us,” Bates recounts. “Up until the Weyerhaeuser mill closed at Mount Pine, the Hot Springs area, man that was a logging town. But it’s pretty well dried up. Matter of fact, I think I know of only three loggers, me and two others, we are about the only three loggers left in the Hot Springs area. So we had to migrate down here.”
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