February 2022
SPARTA, Tennessee – Like Southern Loggin’ Times, which first went to press 50 years ago this October, the Minnear family business got its start in 1972. That was the year James Minnear – Zuke to his friends – first got into business for himself, calling his operation Minnear Logging back then.
Inside This Issue
COVER: Tennessee: 50 Years Of Minnear Logging
SPARTA, Tennessee – Like Southern Loggin’ Times, which first went to press 50 years ago this October, the Minnear family business got its start in 1972. That was the year James Minnear – Zuke to his friends – first got into business for himself, calling his operation Minnear Logging back then.
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
BULLETIN BOARD: Our Best Leisure Selections From Our Not-So-Sharp Minds
Long Story Short
GIRARD, Georgia – The Long brothers aren’t afraid of work or being a little tired. They’re up at 4 a.m. and on the job site by dawn, mouthing a few strategic words about which blocks of timber to focus on before jumping in a cab and picking up where they left off the previous day.
Article by Patrick Dunning, Associate Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
FROM THE BACKWOODS PEW: Lean On Me
As a father, I can especially relate to the idea of protecting and bearing burdens for my children, shielding them from situations that may cause them harm. I would do this even at the expense of getting hurt myself. After all, that is my job.
Excerpted from Bible, Beavers, and Big Timber by author Bradley Antill.
INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP
- As We See It: It Is Not About Us, It’s About You
- Industry Leader Allen Bedell Memorialized In Arkansas
- Bandit Purchases The Trelan Co.
- J. Wilson Jones, Jr. Left Big Mark
- Enviva Continues Expansion
- LEOA Graduates First Student Logger Class
- Teal Jones Group Plans New Sawmill
MACHINES-SUPPLIES-TECHNOLOGY
- M-Series Updated
- King Forwarder
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
Tennessee: 50 Years Of Minnear Logging
SPARTA, Tennessee – Like Southern Loggin’ Times, which first went to press 50 years ago this October, the Minnear family business got its start in 1972. That was the year James Minnear – Zuke to his friends – first got into business for himself, calling his operation Minnear Logging back then.
Zuke’s son, David, went to work with his dad right after finishing high school in 1979. David’s brother Ronnie also worked with them. In that first decade or so, Zuke and his two sons mostly cut saw timber before shifting focus more to pulpwood, starting in 1989.
The earlier incarnation of the Minnear family business has been featured before in this magazine’s history: once in SLT in 1990, when the crew had recently added CTR pull through delimbers. “They came out when we got those delimbers,” David recalls. “That was a big deal when the pull through came out; it was a great innovation.”
SLT’s sister publication Timber Harvesting featured the Minnears in 1996. “We had gone in the chipping business in 1995,” David says. “We invested about $2 million to do that.”
David had a lot of good years with his dad and brother, but time marches on. Ronnie died 20 years ago, and Zuke followed about 10 years after. David had already rechristened the operation as David Minnear Logging in the year 2000 – difficult to imagine that’s already been 22 years ago, but David is still in the woods and still going strong. “He’s about to be cutting some of the same tracts three times,” his own son, David Michael, laughs.
David Minnear, left, with his late brother Ronnie, center, and father James, right, made the cover of Timber Harvesting in April 1996.
Due to supply shortages, Minnear recently bought this ’19 model to run until a ’22 is available.
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