Watch video from the 4th Annual Doniphan TimberFest.

Funnel cakes, log pulls, model sawmills, hillbilly ‘taters, chainsaw sculpting, deep-fried corn — it’s all part of the Fourth Annual TimberFest in Doniphan, Missouri. Local resident Russ Arnold is the event emcee, and he has been announcing the main attractions at TimberFest for the last three years. “It’s a celebration of the timber industry,” Arnold says. “It covers all aspects, from the actual loggers to everybody that’s tied in with it, right down to restaurants and things in this community that are basically tied to the logging industry.”

Despite the current decline in the timber industry, it remains an integral part of the community’s identity and livelihood. Russ claims that it is the hard work and determination of the community that supports the event. But TimberFest is more than just a local phenomenon, as people show up from out-of-state to participate.

“Doniphan is a small rural town, under 1,900 people in the city, and here we have thousands of people show up to compete and to work on this,” Arnold says.

For many, the highlight of the festival came Saturday night during an event called the logger’s relay. During the relay, participants function as a team to execute physically grueling activities related to the traditional timber industry, such as skillful chainsaw operation, lumberjacking, log-rolling, and cross-cut sawing.

There’s a lot at stake here. This year, the team that completed the logger’s relay with the fastest composite time was awarded a respectable sum of one thousand dollars.

In the arena, within an actively moving sea of flannel, one can see a variety of age groups, skilled loggers, and amateurs. Both men and women compete. Marissa Jo Daniel, or “Jo,” to her friends, is a University of Missouri student and one of several female lumberjacks who competed in this year’s relay.

“If the boys do it, I do it,” Jo says.

But sheer rivalry of the sexes is not what brings her back each year. Jo says that she most enjoys the attitude of sportsmanship she observes between the participants. “It’s competition, but it’s not competition,” she says. “Everybody’s cheering for each other. Everybody’s trying to help the other person out. There’s no aggression toward anybody. That’s what I like.”

Jo’s teammate, David Haberl is majoring in forestry at Missouri. His fascination with logger competitions dates back to his childhood in Van Buren, Missouri.
 
“I’ve always watched lumberjack competitions, ever since I was itty bitty,” he says. “Ever since I got started at MU, I’ve just been having a good time. It’s just a blast to swing an axe.”

Mizzou’s yearly participation has created more interest among other colleges. This year, Southern Illinois University and Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, also entered teams in the relay.

“Doniphan is doing an amazing job setting this up every year. They’ve really been amazing for us. Every year it gets better and better. We’re getting more and more colleges involved. I just can’t thank Doniphan enough,” Daniel says.

Jason Hill has competed in the logger relay with his family every year. His family’s team name: The Hillbilly Mafia. He says that it is the people competing that make this event special. “A big part of it is the competition, but along with that is the camaraderie that you see here,” he says. “My family’s been doing this for a long time, and you get a lot of friendships. You renew a lot of old friendships and gain a lot of new friendships. To me, that’s one of the best parts about it.”

Steve Paes is a resource forester for the Missouri Department of Conservation in Doniphan and an official timekeeper for the relay. Paes says that for many locals, it is more than games and sweat. It epitomizes Ozarkian heritage and culture and emphasizes the strength and ruggedness of those who do this on an almost daily basis.

“We’ve got a pretty good timber industry here,” Paes says. “Ripley County has more sawmills than any other county in the state. We have people who are doing the work, and I suppose they look at this as a recognition of the type of work that they do, that the industry has a history, and is part of the history of the state. And they just seem to come out and have fun.”

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