July 2026
GALLATIN, Tenn. — Boze Logging Inc. came into being in 1985 when owner and founder Don Boze took a leap of faith. Boze had farmed row crops and tobacco for eight years after high school, cutting a few logs each winter with an old 674 International tractor and front-end loader and hauling them out on a gooseneck trailer to make a little money on the side.
Inside This Issue
COVER: Still Going
GALLATIN, Tenn. —Boze Logging Inc. came into being in 1985 when owner and founder Don Boze took a leap of faith. Boze had farmed row crops and tobacco for eight years after high school, cutting a few logs each winter with an old 674 International tractor and front-end loader and hauling them out on a gooseneck trailer to make a little money on the side.
Article by Patrick Dunning, Associate Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
SOUTHERN STUMPIN': Fire Insurance
With wildfire season off to a wild start, it’s vital for timber companies to know every nuance of their insurance policies and how to capture and claim the full range of losses when fire occurs. In this submitted article, insurance recovery attorneys Grant E. Brown and Dennis J. Artese of Anderson Kill P.C. lay out the key forms of coverage that should respond to fire damage, along with steps for managing and maximizing a claim.
FROM THE BACKWOODS PEW
Perhaps you have noticed that socks seem to have changed a bit over the years. They were once one of the standard Christmas gifts (along with new underwear) that parents gave to their children. Even today you may find them hung by the chimney with care, but socks just don’t seem to be what they once were. In days of old, you could make puppets, golf-club covers, boxing gloves (long story there and it involves some blood!) and even regular gloves to keep your hands warm while making a snowman. Some socks were even movie stars; remember Lamb Chop?
INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP
- Wilson Drake Was Key At Franklin
- ALC Back Washington, DC
- Cupp Joins Trade Advisory Committee
- Hunt FP Closes Louisiana Mill
- USFS Moves Ahead On Disaster Recovery
- Students Graduate From Diesel Tech Program
EYE OPENER
GORDON, Ala.—Ponsse North America hosted a live woods demonstration on June 12-13 near Gordon, Ala., drawing industry professionals from across the U.S. South to a Weyerhaeuser tract in the state’s wiregrass region for a firsthand look at cut-to-length (CTL) logging in the heart of pine country. The two-day event put the company’s latest in woods machinery on display before a steady crowd.
Article by Patrick Dunning, Associate Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
Still Going
Veteran Logger Don Boze earns his living on small, hugh-value tracts.
Article by Patrick Dunning, Associate Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
GALLATIN, Tenn.—Boze Logging Inc. came into being in 1985 when owner and founder Don Boze took a leap of faith. Boze had farmed row crops and tobacco for eight years after high school, cutting a few logs each winter with an old 674 International tractor and front-end loader and hauling them out on a gooseneck trailer to make a little money on the side.
That spring, staring down a hard drought, he borrowed against crops he hadn’t planted yet — 500 acres of corn, 500 acres of soybeans and 20 acres of tobacco — and couldn’t shake the gut feeling that he shouldn’t plant it at all.
“Something in my heart told me not to borrow that money,” Boze recalls. “It was a feeling I had. I started the company and that same year the drought was so bad in our region we would’ve lost everything, our homes included. It was the Lord’s divine intervention.”
He started with a 160-model Dunham knuckleboom loader fitted onto a 1958 Mack truck, and a 1978-model John Deere 448 skidder he’d wrench on every couple of days to keep it running. His first cousin, who had also quit farming, logged alongside him for the first three years. In those early days he hand-felled as many as six tractor-trailer loads in a single day, burning over three gallons of gas through a chain saw.
“I logged as hard as I could because I had to support my family and pay my farm debt,” he says. “I’d work like a dog from daylight to dark. I have zero regrets and I still love it today.”
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