Scott Swanson
Bob Waibel was one-of-a-kind – larger than life.
He was a country boy who melded into many worlds, from working brutal jobs as a tree feller in the mountains to performing in front of large crowds half a world away.
“He pretty much did it all,” his wife, Mona, said.
Waibel, who died of cancer on Dec. 1 at the age of 80, pursued a mind-boggling array of interests and occupations – cowboy, logger, writer, world traveler, community leader, avid gardener, artist, woodworker, horse breeder and trainer, mineralogist, dancer… and much more.
His wife knew him as a hard-working man, with seemingly bottomless energy and enthusiasm.
“He would never quit until the day was done and it was so dark that he couldn’t do anything else,” she said.
He was known to the world as the Rhinestone Logger.
Born to Herb and Evelyn Waibel near Scotts Mills on Aug. 11, 1934, he was the oldest of six – five brothers and one sister. Bob Waibel attended Crooked Finger Grade School before his family moved to a 500-acre ranch on Northern Drive, east of Brownsville, where he attended Warren Creek School on the ranch property. He graduated in 1952 from Central Linn High School, where he lettered in basketball, baseball and track, and played French horn in the high school band.
Waibel loved ranch life, helping his parents and raising horses. The family was heavily involved in rodeos and Bob Waibel and his brothers raced ponies at the Calapooia Roundup as teenagers. Waibel was named Best Cowboy at the final rodeo in the Crawfordsville arena.
He also helped with the family’s logging company, Waibel Logging, working long days.
“He was raised by parents who believed in hard work 24 hours a day, if they could get it,” Mona Waibel said. “When they started logging, a lot of people were getting killed in the woods. His dad got killed right away, and his brother died later in a logging accident. But they were hard workers.”
Working as a faller led to Bob Waibel’s career in timber sports, when a state logging safety inspector, Stan Lyons, visited the Waibels’ job site one day in 1955 and introduced Bob to axe throwing.
Waibel decided to compete in the Timber Carnival in Albany the following year, entering both the axe throwing and log chopping contests. In 1957 he founded the Brownsville Pioneer Picnic logging competition, which continues until the present. He produced the event until last summer. His son Rob is going to continue it.
In September of 1957 he was drafted into the Army, serving as a cook in France and Germany. After his discharge in 1959, he continued to serve in the reserves, retiring as a major.
Newly returned from the service in 1959, Waibel met Estelle Ramona Hyer Stephenson of Sweet Home, a young widow with a toddler daughter, at a dance in Brownsville. Mona Waibel said their meeting was arranged by mutual friends.
“We started dancing together and we got married. They had that all set up. My husband said he fell in love with my little girl. She was about 3 years old.”
She said she found the Waibels somewhat untamed when they first met.
“They were all hard workers, but they were wild kids growing up,” she said. “The first day I went out there, all the brothers were out there with guns, shooting at each other, jumping behind the trees.
“They had the flashiest log trucks you ever saw. Bright colors with their names on the side. Everybody would watch out for them because they wouldn’t stay on their side of the road. They had full loads of logs on.
“Bob was never like that. He was a softer kind of guy than the other brothers. At least I always thought so.”
They married in June of 1961.
The Waibels settled in Sweet Home, where he became very involved the community and raising their daughter Dawn, whom he adopted, and their son Rob.
He chaired the Sportsman’s Holiday Working Loggers Olympics competitions for 19 years, participated in the Sweet Home Rock and Mineral club and its shows for 50 years, served as president of that organization and various service clubs, and as a member of numerous city committees and the Planning Commission. He helped found the Northwest Logging Sports organization in 1970 and served as its president or as a board member for 33 years.
He was named Jr. First Citizen, First Citizen and received the Distinguished Service award at annual Sweet Home Chamber Banquets over the years.
Waibel got his “Rhinestone Logger” moniker when he was invited to Washington, D.C. in 1976 for a logging exhibition as part of the bicentennial celebration. His wife made him a pair of rhinestone-and-red-sequin-studded suspenders for the occasion, and they became part of his regular logging competition outfit, though he removed them while competing.
He competed in axe throwing, horizontal/standing block chop, crosscut, choker setting, hot saw and tree climbing, bringing home literally 1,000 awards that decorated the Waibels’ home.
His son Rob and grandsons Xander and Justin, as well as granddaughter Emma, all have participated in logging sports, Rob – a high school forestry teacher by day – establishing himself as one of the top non-professional competitors in the world.
Bob Waibel’s logging sports prowess earned him coverage in a 2005 article in The New York Times – when he was 71 and still competing after half a century – and many other newspapers. He continued until this year, throwing an axe in the Loggers Olympics last July.
He competed all over the world, driving his family all over North America to appear in shows, appearing year after year in many competition.
They spent six months at the World’s Fair in Montreal, Canada, in the late 1960s, Bob performing with Jube Wickheim’s Timber Shows as “Bob Labelle from the north coast of Quebec.”
“Bob knew what the crowd liked,” Mona recalled.
“The people from other countries wanted him to go back with them do this competition over there,” Mona Waibel said. “They said they’d pay his way. I said I’d go too if they paid my way, because he didn’t want to go without me. So they paid my way too.”
He performed at Sea World in San Diego and Cleveland, World’s Fair exhibitions in Seattle and Spokane, Spain, Japan, six times in Australia, five times in New Zealand and hundreds of shows across the U.S. and Canada.
That led to visitors to their home in Sweet Home.
“We stayed in their homes, and they came and stayed with us,” Mona recalled.
“One time I opened the door and there were eight big guys there, from Australia, who told me they were staying with us. They stayed for months. Ate us out of house and home. Before long, they told others to come and stay and we were filled up.”
In addition to their logging-related travels, the Waibels also traveled the world as tourists, visiting a total of more than 40 countries.
“The only one I didn’t like was Russia,” Mona said. “ I never did care for it there, but other countries were wonderful.”
One of Bob Waibel’s greatest loves was rocks and minerals. He participated in the Sweet Home Rock and Mineral Show each spring through this year and he was one of the early pioneers in the discovery of Holley blue agate, a stone that is found exclusively in the Sweet Home area.
“He was a rockhound,” Mona said. “The rock shows were really important to Bob. He loved to get out and dig.”
She said her most vivid memories of her husband will be seeing him busy.
“He liked to work more than anybody,” she said. “If he’d see grass in our driveway, he’d be out there with a shovel and rake immediately. He liked everything perfect.
“I’m going to miss him.”