October 2026

Article by Patrick Dunning, Associate Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times

BROOKHAVEN, Miss. – The Smith family has cut timber in this corner of southwest Mississippi for three generations, and each has been guided by the same conviction that land stewardship matters equally as much as the wood it produces.

Jason Smith, 48, owner of Jason Smith Logging, Inc. has carried that legacy forward with the same resolve, establishing the company in 2011 and working the same hill country his grandfather and father did before him. His own four sons are coming of age and eager to continue the family tradition, already positioning themselves to carry the operation into the fourth generation.

Smith’s grandfather, Paul Smith, was a lifelong logger and previously featured in Southern Loggin’ Times’ August 1974 and October 1983 issues under the Paul Smith & Son, Inc. banner, which he established in the early 1950s with two hefty mules and a crosscut saw.

All three of Paul’s sons logged, including Jason’s father Jimmy, who was also featured in SLT’s February issue in 2002 under the J&P Smith Logging namesake. Jimmy conducted mostly final harvests of large-diameter timber. At the time, Jason was a mere 23 years old and working for his dad full time after finishing the diesel mechanics program at Copiah-Lincoln Community College in Wesson. All three of Jimmy’s sons have since built their own independent logging businesses and remain in the trade to this day.

“My dad was a humble, reserved and quiet man, so when he said something, you made sure to listen,” Smith says. “We were best friends and I held a lot of respect for him.”

His father believed there was always something left to learn and would often take his crew to watch other operations work if they were rained out or in between jobs, reasoning that another logger’s methods might be different but worth studying and implementing in some cases.

Jimmy also gave his sons room to try their own ideas within that framework. There was no shame in trying something new, and if it didn’t work, they went back to what already did.

“He said ‘they might not do it the way we do things, but they also might do something better than us or something we hadn’t thought about,’” Smith recalls. “I extend that same courtesy to my sons now, if they have any fresh ideas about how we can do something different, let’s try and see if it works.”

When his father began easing toward retirement, Smith made a deliberate call not to expand but to stay small rather than absorb another crew.

“I told him I didn’t want all of his equipment to add another crew; I can work more efficiently if I run just one job,” he explains.

Smith still kept enough equipment on hand to float between jobs and cover for breakdowns, a habit that still shapes how he operates today.

That reputation has been recognized beyond just immediate kin. The Mississippi Foresty Assn. named Smith its Outstanding Logger of the Year in 2014, citing his service to the logging industry through safety and conservation. He has also served on the Mississippi Loggers Assn. board for the last six years.

The family’s founding principles, as Smith describes them, haven’t changed in more than 70 years.

“We’re an honest and humble, hardworking people who strive to always do the right thing, if it helps you or hurts you. We have a strong faith in the Lord and believe we’re supposed to be good stewards of the land,” Smith says. “Logging is not a job; you have to live it. There’s no start and stop time.”