Phillips Wins Inland Empire Birling Title

Jerry Phillips of Clarkston sent Roy Bartlett of Clarkston plunging from a log into the water of the Lewiston municipal swimming pool yesterday to win the Inland Empire men’s birling championship.

His victory climaxed the city’s third annual logging sports show, which marked the start of a week-long observance of Forest Products Week at Lewiston and Clarkston.

About 500 — the biggest crowd in three years — thronged the slopes above the pool in Vollmer Park to watch the birlers and other exhibitions of logging skill.

Marie Peterka Wins

Marie Peterka, 11, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Peterka, Lewiston, won the junior miss birling competition, and Robert Moore, 7, son of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Moore, Lewiston, placed first in the junior mister event.

Moore gave an exhibition of tumbling aboard a wooden block. He and a son, Edward, 6, also balanced aboard a log, with the youngster standing on his head on a chair.

Miss Barbara Peterka, Lewiston, world’s champion woman birler, and Miss Bette Ellis, Clarkston, former world’s champion, who is also 1962 Lewiston Roundup queen, gave a birling exhibition, balancing on a fastspinning log.

The long pond crew from the Clearwater Unit of Potlatch, Forests, Inc., staged a jousting match, jabbing at each other from spinning logs with poles padded by a rubber ball on the end. Each log was manned by a helmsman who steered with a paddle.

Jousting Match Popular

The jousting match, which drew heavy applause from the spectators, was based on a sport popular with lumberjacks who, often fortified by a bottle of whiskey, used to joust from canoes at the conclusion of a logging drive.

The show at the pool was sponsored by the Lewiston-Clarkston local of the International Woodworkers of America, which financed the event and provided judges and timers. PFI contributed the logs.

Spectators were welcomed by Leonard Palmer, administrative director of the IWA local, and Ralph Siverly, president of the Lewis-Clark Hoo Hoo Club, a fraternal organization of the forest products industry which is sponsoring the week’s events.

The Lewiston Chamber of Commerce will salute forest products at its noon meeting today at the Hotel Lewis-Clark with a talk by Dr. George Marra, Pullman, director of wood technology at Washington State University.

Other events will include exhibitions of woodworking skills Wednesday through Saturday at 920 Main St., a talk by John Aram, Tacoma, a vice president of Weyerhaeuser Co., at a Hoo Hoo Club banquet at 7:15 p m. Friday at the Hotel Lewis-Clark, and a display of wood products throughout the week in the alcove of the J. C. Penney Co. store at 610 Main St.

This story was published in the Oct. 22, 1962, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.