Sean C. Morgan
After graduating some heavy hitters last year, the Sweet Home High School Forestry Club is “rebuilding,” but in a recent “pre-season,” the team came through with two first-place trophies and one second place finish in three competitions.
Four competitions and state are held in the spring, said natural resources teacher Blake Manley, who coaches the club in forestry competitions. Scio High School used to be the only school that hosted an event in the fall, but three years ago, Tillamook started another because the schedule had no room in the spring, and Clatskanie just shifted its competition to the fall.
Sabin may fill the open slot in the spring, and La Pine has just formed a team that’s starting strong and will host a competition, Manley said. Now Corvallis has a fall program.
“It’s growing,” Manley said of the activity. “Statewide, it’s growing.”
With fall competitions in the picture, he said. “I look at it as a preseason.”
During competitions, forestry teams compete in a wide variety of physical and academic events, ranging from pole climbing and choker setting to map reading and cable splicing.
Sweet Home graduated six of its eight top performers from last year in terms of point production, Manley said. The remaining two are senior Sam Mitchell and junior Becky Belcher.
“Coming into the season, we were not sure what we were going to have,” Manley said, so he thought, “let’s do something we haven’t done before.”
The academic side of the program moved out to the old forestry building. Neighboring metals teacher Austin Hart helped out, recruiting a half dozen students, and Manley added some more.
The young foresters can hop across the street from the forestry building to Sweet Home’s forestry competition site, situated between the varsity baseball and tennis courts and work on their skills.
The team took 35 members to the Scio competition to kick off the year, Manley said. So far, typical participation has been 22 to 25 team members. Last year, it was 15.
In the classroom, Manley had 24 seats, he said. He had to bring in two more to accommodate the students who wanted to take his classes.
“The kids want to learn forests,” he said. “Competition is a single part of what we do. We have 147 students walking through the door every day, and they want to be here.”
Sweet Home won the last of the three competitions, at Tillamook, led by Belcher with 80 points and Mitchell with 22, Manley said. A lot of the other team members provided one to six points, and that made a difference.
Sweet Home edged out Tillamook 159-155, Manley said.
“All these newcomers, it’s the only reason we won.”
The Huskies finished second at Clatskanie, Manley said. “We didn’t expect to win because they bring everybody. Clatskanie has plenty of returners, but we were right there. By April, we’re going to be right there.”
Belcher put up 85 points, with another 40 added by junior Denae Pennington.
At their first outing, the Huskies won at Scio followed closely by Philomath, Manley said. Belcher led her team there, and she won overall Jill at all three competitions.
But she has close competition from two other girls, Manley said.
“She’s just farther along right now.”
One of her competitors is tough on the technical side and is learning the physical part of the game, he said. She’ll give Belcher a run for it.
“We’re girl-heavy right now,” Manley said, but some of the returning boys are putting up some good points, including Alex Miller, Tristan Lemmer and Dacotah Pennington.
All are sophomores, Manley said. “They’re taking what they started last year, and they’re running with (it).
“I’m really impressed with the returning kids taking new kids under their wing.”
The program is getting some help from graduate Zech Brown, who helped lead the team to a state title LAST YEAR.
Brown is working at Murphy Veneer, Maney said. When he gets off work, he comes and helps coach the team.
“He has more knowledge that I don’t have yet,” Manley said, particularly in events such as cable splicing.
Manley is from Eastern Oregon, and he said they don’t do a lot of cable logging out there.
Hart also is assisting as a coach.
The regular season begins Feb. 22 at the Oregon Logging Conference in Eugene, Manley said. That isn’t a competition, but it marks the beginning of the competition season.
The Huskies travel to Knappa on Feb. 29 followed by their home competition, Philomath, Sabin or La Pine and the state meet.
In the hunt this year will be Clatskenie, Philomath and Sweet Home, Manley said, and the scoring will be close at state.
Feeding the competition program is the academics.
“We’re able to transfer those skills out there,” Manley said. He is teaching three courses right now, including Forestry I, Forest Production and Wildlife.
The Wildlife class is new, he said, and it covers a wide range of material.
“We were looking at what do kids want,” Manley said. The Wildlife class has 24 students this semester, and he expects to have 24 again in the spring.
It’s part of the natural resources career and technical education program, he said. It includes biology and habitat, but the class goes beyond that. The students learn about the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and hunting, and they even get an introduction to taxidermy.
“It’s a real job,” Manley said. “We’re doing stuff like boiling a deer mount. We can bring in a taxidermist, or we can just do it; and I’ve always been big on doing.”
And one student isn’t wasting any time applying what he’s learning, Manley said. He’s going to start doing European mounts, skull and antler mounts, for his friends and family.
Taxidermists have “tons of jobs,” Manley said. They’re usually scheduled six to eight months out.
In forest production, it’s the same thing, Manley said. In the program’s second year, the students work with the school’s sawmill, buying and processing logs. They toured the Weyerhaeuser Santiam Mill.
“We’re learning jobs,” Manley said. “Some take a four-year degree. Some of them don’t.”