GALETON — Perennial lumberjack favorites Arden Cogar Jr. and Mike Sullivan are bringing their Lumberjack Show of Champions to the main arena for the 67th annual Woodsmen Show being held Aug. 3-5 at Cherry Springs State Park.
The show will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.
During their one-hour shows at 11:45 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Aug. 3, Cogar and Sullivan will entertain the audience with humorous, informative demonstrations of the skills needed to be a lumberjack.
Contestants in Friday’s 2 p.m. hands-on amateur competition will get to rub elbows with these two lumberjack champions as Cogar, Sullivan and staff from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources assist amateurs competing in the two-person log roll, axe throw and two-person crosscut.
Amateurs must be at least 13 years of age to adults to compete; those 13 to 17 must have parental consent. Register for the contest Friday morning at the DCNR trailer and practice for the contest beginning at noon.
Visitors are invited to stick around to see if Sullivan can win the overall lumberjack title for the third year in a row during the professional competition from noon to 3 p.m. Aug. 4. As seen on television, the top lumberjacks and jills in the country will compete in eight different events, including log rolling, axe throw, springboard, tree felling, standing chop, hot chainsaw, one-person buck crosscut and two-person buck crosscut.
From noon to 3 p.m. Aug. 5, the horse pulling competition will be in the main arena. Draft horses weighing 1,500 to 2,000 pounds each will pull thousands of pounds of logs the same way trees were removed from the forest during the logging era.
Jay Smar will perform different music at each show he does between 11 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Aug. 4. He plays two guitars, a claw-hammer banjo and fiddle and does flat footing, a type of clog dancing. A baritone, Smar sings traditional American and original folk, old time mountain music, bluegrass and gospel tunes as well as coal mining songs of Northeast Pennsylvania.
Between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Aug. 5, Johnny “Cash” Barnett on guitar will perform hits made famous by the legendary Johnny Cash as well as several others by artists such as Merle Haggard, George Jones, Hank Williams Sr. and Jr., David Allen Coe, Waylon Jennings, Conway Twitty, Willie Nelson, Alan Jackson and Elvis Presley. Barnett has been doing a tribute show to Johnny Cash for the past 30 years, since he was 25 years old.
From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 3-4 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 5, visitors to Woodhick Grove can experience the lifestyle of woodhicks in an 1890s logging camp. Among the topics and demonstrations will be log rafting, split rail fence building, blacksmithing, music, woodcarving, lumber camp operation and storytelling. All topics are based on extensive research and are historically accurate to the period.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Aug. 5, participants in the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum’s Cork Camp will demonstrate the skills they have learned from this bygone era.
All three days will be a treasure hunt with prizes for children nine and under and food, craft and retail vendors. Available for purchase will be a variety of food and wood-related items, such as wood-turned art, wood sculptures, rustic furniture and wooden novelties as well as commemorative T-shirts, trapping supplies, lumber maintenance products, homemade baskets, chainsaws, a portable sawmill, etc.
During the three days, more than 10 hours are scheduled for chainsaw artists entered in the Masterpiece Competition to each do a carving. These carvings can be viewed as they are created in the individual artists’ booths. Judges will pick the top three place winners for awards to be presented at 3:30 p.m. Aug. 5.
Chainsaw artists will also compete each day in one-hour Quick Carve contests to create special pieces that will be immediately auctioned off to the highest bidders.
Being raffled off during the Woodsmen Show will be a chainsaw at 2:30 p.m. Aug. 3; safety chaps and safety helmet at noon Aug. 4; a Aug. 5 will be three firearms, including a Mossberg 500 .410 Pump-Action shotgun, Ruger .308 caliber – Serial No. 1 of 1,000 made; and a Henry Golden Boy .22 long rifle. Winners need not be present.
The gates open each day at 9 a.m. Admission for adults is $9 Aug. 3 and 5 and $12 Aug. 4. Admission for children 6 to 12 years old is $7 all three days. Children 5 and under are admitted free. A three-day pass for adults is $23 and $16 for children 6 to 12 years old.
The Galeton Rotary Club sponsors the Woodsmen Show. All proceeds from the event are used to support local projects. For more information, contact the Galeton Rotary Club at 435-6855 or visit www.woodsmenshow.com.
The park is located at 4639 Cherry Springs Road, about 12 miles from Galeton via West Branch Road and 15 miles from Coudersport via Route 44.
