FRA Names Tapscott Brothers National Outstanding Logger For 2020

Forest Resources Assn. (FRA) and Stihl Inc. honored Tapscott Brothers Logging of Scottsville, Va. as FRA’s 2020 National Outstanding Logger. The Tapscotts had won FRA’s Southeastern region Outstanding Logger award and then were selected by a national panel of judges as the U.S. winner from among FRA’s six regional winners.

Charles (Binky) Tapscott and Troy (Guke) Tapscott started logging with their father, Harvey, in the 1980s, when they were only in their late teens. They have steadily grown the operation into the current business that now operates five logging crews and one chipping crew, numerous company-owned and contract trucks and a large inventory of mostly-in-house-built log and chip trailers. Additionally, the Tapscotts operate their own logging equipment dealership, Forest Pro, affiliated with the Tigercat brand. Forest Pro now has three locations across central Virginia.

The Tapscotts have a long history of innovating. They were one of the first logging contractors in Virginia to employ a farm tractor with a “street sweeper” brush and a water truck to clean the roads if their truckers happened to track any mud onto a public roadway. Binky and Guke have always been mechanically gifted, building their own gate delimbers and fabricating their own log trailers. Binky created his own version of a chain flail delimber and patented a reversible slasher saw. They also created their own gigantic clambunk trailer for long hauls from the woods to the log deck and are now experimenting with a drone for monitoring the progress of their crews’ forest harvesting and BMP work.

Binky has been a longtime member of the Virginia Forestry Assn. (VFA) and Virginia Loggers Assn. (VLA), and he serves on the VLA Board of Directors. The Tapscotts have won FRA regional Outstanding Logger award three times now, spanning three decades—in the Appalachian region in 1992 and in FRA’s Southeastern region in 1998 and 2020.  

The FRA 2020 National Outstanding Logger Award prizes—a large, black walnut wooden award plaque from FRA and a $1,000 check provided by Stihl—were presented to Binky and Guke by FRA Appalachian region Manager Rick Meyer at the luncheon of the Virginia Loggers Assn. Board meeting in Columbia, Va. on August 22. VLA and VFA jointly submitted the Tapscotts’ nomination for the FRA award program.