With skilled precision, mother and daughter DixieLee Schafer and Lily Schafer wielded a saw through a sassafras tree in 34.22 seconds at the Apple Festival’s old-fashioned log sawing competition on Saturday.
Cheers, hollers and whoops erupted in the tent on the festival grounds as a hunk of the tree fell to the ground. DixieLee barely broke a sweat as she raised her arms victoriously.
“It was an excellent experience. I gave it all I got,” DixieLee said.
This year about 60 to 80 competitors took up the saw to compete for the fastest time to cut through a sassafras tree. There were four divisions: men, women, girls and boys.
The event was run by organizers Shawn Wregglesworth and his son Paul Wregglesworth, who said they wanted to keep the family-run event going when the original founders Bill and Rich Martin could not continue.
For many competitors, the old-fashioned log sawing competition is part of their routine at the Apple Festival.
“This has been our family tradition for 20 years,” Lily said.
But the practice for such a competition is also drawn from the women’s daily life. Both grew up on the family farm in Buchanan where they grow hay, corn and soybeans. The farm has been in the family for more than 100 years. On the farm, their duties include splitting wood and caring for livestock, which gave the team an edge on the log-sawing competition.
Their time of 34.22 seconds was the women’s division best time by 4 p.m. Saturday.
For the Schaffer family, their Apple Festival tradition starts each year before the parade at the Nuggett restaurant. After the meal, the family watches the parade and then they head to the Apple Festival to compete in the old-fashioned log sawing competition, though this the first year that the mother-daughter duo has competed as a team.
“This year was pretty fun,” Lily said. “It is the first year that she did this with me.”
DixieLee took the reigns when a friend of Lily’s who was originally going to compete changed her mind.
“So my mom thought it would be a great thing as a mother and daughter team,” DixieLee said.
Now that they know they make a great team, the pair said they would be back at it next year, maybe with a faster time yet.
“It is the one time of year when a lot of family that doesn’t normally get to see each other gets together,” Lily said. “We literally do the same things every year. If you have a good routine, stick with it.”