Loggers’ Playday prep ‘a well-oiled machine’

The cottonwood has been delivered, the queens (yes, plural) have been crowned, and Olympic Stadium is prepped for the 53rd annual Loggers Playday.

It’s a process that’s become so familiar to the governing committee that their final planning meeting Aug. 31 lasted less than 10 minutes. Many of the members have been active for decades, and new generations are getting involved.

“It’s a well-oiled machine,” says Lisa Anderson, who’s serving this year as the Playday court coordinator.

Most of the moving parts remain the same year after year, making the planning process fairly smooth: major sponsors, wood and equipment donors, program printing, even “the mouths behind the mic” — Don Bell and John Henson.

There’s a distinct separation of responsibilities among the event’s elements, and every player knows their part. The logging skills competitions and the Jack Reynvaan Memorial Run are all organized by members of the Playday Committee. But the parade is handled independently by the Hoquiam Elks, and the salmon barbecue is put on by the Hoquiam Lions.

Guy Dahlstrom, who has been active in Playday operations from Day One, is serving as committee chairman this year — reluctantly, but earnestly.

“You are voted in by past chairmen,” he says. “They surprise you with it.”

“It’s getting to be slim pickin’s, you know,” adds Anderson, who’s already been tapped to co-chair next year’s Playday with her husband, Kirk. “We’re all too busy.”

“So?” Dahlstrom interjects with a laugh.

WHAT’S NEW

After the short committee meeting, most hung around to socialize for a bit. One reminisced about a parade in the early 1980s when his daughter was a Playday princess: The boiler on the court’s float sprang a leak, spreading flames all over the float. No one was hurt, but it made for a livelier-than-usual parade.

Today, the big news on that float is that two of the six court members will reign as co-queens.

Each year, the Playday princesses vie for that position via a point system. As they participate in various activities such as selling pins and washing the truck before parades, they are awarded points; and when the final scores are tallied, the winner is crowned queen. “They have to earn it,” Anderson says.

And this year, two of them earned it: Josie Emery and Karlie Krohn, both 17, logged equally impressive point totals.

The only noticeable change in the overall program will be a dialed-down performance by Paul Mackenzie. The 78-year-old British Columbia native, who’s been entertaining the Playday crowd as a clown between events every year since 1965, is fighting lung cancer.

“He basically quit all other logging shows except Loggers Playday about 10 years ago because he decided he was too old,” Dahlstrom says.

And because he’s become so emotionally attached to the Hoquiam event, he and his wife, Kolly, are still coming this weekend in spite of his illness.

“He’ll do a little bit, but not like he did before,” says committee member Joe DuGay.