Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
A Sweet Home log truck driver was killed Wednesday, April 19, in Washington County after his truck crashed.
Louis “Tony” Wofford, 42, was driving a truck owned by Valley View Logging and Cutting Inc. on a private road, 1 1/2 miles west of Cherry Grove, south of Henry Hagg Lake and west of the town of Gaston.
Washington County Sheriff’s investigators said Wofford apparently jumped from his truck about 1:32 p.m. as it careened down a hill.
Wofford attempted to slow the truck down by scraping against an embankment along the road. When that proved unsuccessful, he jumped from the truck and was struck by the trailer after jumping.
After Wofford jumped, the truck continued down the hill and struck a tree. The truck was destroyed in the accident.
Cindy Sieg, of Valley View Logging, said an OSHA investigation indicated that the brakes failed because of a leaking air line.
She said the brakes had just been replaced a month earlier, but the line had apparently started to leak and Wofford had tried to fix it with some tape, which did not successfully stop the air leak.
Wofford was born Feb. 28, 1964 in Sacaton, Ariz. He was a Lakota of the Oglala Indian tribe. His family was from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was the keeper of his grandfather, Oliver “J.B.” Hudspeth’s, drum.
He and his wife, DiAnn were married in 1996. They have two grown daughters, a son and nine grandchildren. DiAnn Wofford works part-time for Valley View.
He started driving log trucks more than a year ago after encouragement from Chuck Sieg of Valley View, for whom he had done some work and had rented a house.
“Some people never find their calling in life, but at 40 Tony did,” said Cindy Sieg. “Tony was a truck driver and he was a darned good one. He loved it and that carried over to everyone around him.”
Among his other interests, Wofford enjoyed fishing, camping and building things out of wood. He liked telling and playing jokes and loved to make people laugh by singing and doing impersonations.
Another of his particular interests was his hound dog, Gleska, which means “spotted” in Sioux.
Wofford loved everything about trucking, but he especially liked CB radios, Sieg said.
“The crew would turn up their CBs when Tony was coming to the landing – they wanted to hear the next entertaining comment,” she said “He’d always add on little phrases, like ‘I’m leaving the branding hammer loaded (dramatic pause) for bear’ as he left the logging site.”
Once, he and DiAnn pulled their fifth-wheel trailer onto Tony’s brother-in-law’s property in Salem.
“Tony parked the fifth-wheel down in the field and came up to the house,” Sieg recounted. “He said, ‘I’ve parked my rig down in the field and now I’ve come back to take back the land your people forcibly took from my ancestors.'”
He loved his family and always enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren, family members said.
He just had a great attitude,” Sieg said. “He loved life. Tony just brought everybody up.
“He was well-liked. This is pretty devastating.”