Inside This Issue
COVER: Two Generations Of Tidwells In Alabama
DOUBLE SPRINGS, Alabama – The Tidwell family has marked its signature throughout this private ground on the edge of Bankhead National Forest for four generations, and 24-year-old Grant Tidwell is proud to follow suit as the new kid on the block.
Article by Patrick Dunning
SOUTHERN STUMPIN': End Quotes
I’ve included my annual gathering of some of my favorite quotes—the best, most interesting, the funniest anecdotes, observations and nuggets of wisdom from the loggers who have been profiled in feature articles in Southern Loggin’ Times throughout 2023. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and see you in the woods in 2024!
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
In The Blood
JEFFERSONVILLE, Georgia – When his alarm goes off at 4 a.m. every morning, Charles Hill, 76, is ready to take on the day. “It’s always a different tree,” he said. “Let’s see what challenge is today.” Charles runs Hill Logging Inc., the company his father Quinton started in 1946. For the family behind this family business, logging is a way of life.
Article supplied by Waratah, written by Denise Hnytka, and has been edited and expanded for Southern Loggin’ Times by David Abbott.
Forward Progress
PITTSVIEW, Alabama – At the Mid-South Forestry Equipment Show in Starkville, Mississippi, back in September, Pitts Enterprises made a big splash. Between their own setup and their dealers who were exhibiting, it would have been hard to miss the Pitts’ logo. There was a good reason for the extra-visible presence: Pitts was debuting and promoting several new product designs at the show.
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
Top Notch
PRATTVILLE, Alabama – Alabama Loggers Council chairman Freddy Tidwell, Alabama Forestry Association President/CEO Chris Isaacson and their teams put together an excellent program for the Alabama Loggers Council’s 2023 annual meeting on Saturday, October 28. An audience of nearly 200 gathered for a full slate of scheduled speakers, and to applaud the state’s Outstanding Logger of the Year winner, Lewis Timber of Aliceville.
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
Charcoal Wood
The South’s naval stores industry, highlighted in a series by DK Knight in Southern Loggin’ Times earlier this year, provided some fascinating history of a forest-based industry. There is another interesting forest-based industry, often forgotten, which even utilized the same technology as a tar kiln. Charcoal production, commonly called charcoal burning, was also important.
Article by Thomas J. Straka, Professor Emeritus, Clemson University Dept. of Forestry and Environmental Conservation
FROM THE BACKWOODS PEW: Don’t Let the Smoke Get in Your Eyes
To the outsider, watching a forester set a fire would immediately bring about shouts of confusion and charges of arson. But the forester knows he needs to clear the competition, and fire is the best way. So it is in our lives. Many things want to control us, control our time and energy. God will bring fire into your life and mine, to see if we are keeping the competition out; it we are wasting our time and energy pursuing things that will not last, things that will slowly pull us into the wasteland.
Excerpted from Woods, Worship, and Wasteland, Bradley Antill, author
INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP
- As We See It – The American Logger: A Legacy Of Achievement
- Weyerhaeuser Announces THRIVE Program
- Town Seeks Interest In Foley Pulp Mill
- Steven Harris Thrived Procuring Pulpwood
- Late 2022 Purchases Put Enviva In A Bind
- Quadco Named As Distributor For Bracke
- Highland Plans Pellet Mill In Grenada
Two Generations Of Tidwells In Alabama
Article by Patrick Dunning
DOUBLE SPRINGS, Alabama – The Tidwell family has marked its signature throughout this private ground on the edge of Bankhead National Forest for four generations, and 24-year-old Grant Tidwell is proud to follow suit as the new kid on the block.
“I was born six miles from here and am the fourth generation to work this land,” Tidwell says. “My great-grandfather was a farmer and share cropped this piece in the 1940s. My grandfather was the first logger in our family and thinned it in 1978. My dad clear-cut this tract in the ’90s and I’m thinning it again in 2023.”
After graduating from Winston County High School, Grant spent one semester at Wallace State Community College, Hanceville, with the intent of transferring to Auburn University and earning a bachelor’s degree in forestry. Instead of studying, though, he daydreamed about logging and what his father, Freddy Tidwell, 57, was up to in the woods.
“I was miserable,” Grant admits. “My dad had both of his crews set up 20 miles from campus and all I could think about was what I should be doing in the woods, It’s all I’ve ever loved to do.”
Grant founded Generations Timber LLC in June 2021 at 21 years old while still running his father’s second pulpwood crew full time. Grant initially planned for the company to serve as his weekend side hustle clearing lots and moving dirt with an excavator. He bought a 1977 Chevrolet C60 and retrofitted a log frame to the 9 ft. flatbed, and before too long was felling timber with a chain saw and selling it to local hardwood and cross tie mills.
“The original plan was to do dirt work on the side,” he says. “I did that for about a year then had an opportunity to buy my dad’s second crew, which I was running at the time. He helped me buy his equipment to get my feet off the ground in June of 2022 and we’ve been running since.”
Double Springs Middle School students got a first-hand look at Alabama’s forest products industry during the state’s 2023 Woods to Goods Week. Grant hosted the kids on the Generations Timber job site.
Cyndi Tidwell (center) keeps the books for her husband and son’s logging operations.
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