RANGELEY — On July 26, 2013, during the Friday Evening Program of the Logging Festival, the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum inducted Richard A. Hale of Bethel and Rangeley into the Logger’s Hall of Fame.

Begun in 1985, the Logger’s Hall of Fame honors people who have worked in the woods for a significant part of their lives and who have made valuable contributions to lumbering in the western Maine mountains.

“It’s one of the most important things we do,” said Museum President Emeritus and retired logger Rodney Richard Sr.

Hale joins a distinguished list of local woodsmen that includes Lewis Abbott, Clem Field, Bud Field, Robert Wilbur, William Spiller, Elijah White Jr. and Wendell Steward.

Born in Lisbon Falls in 1921, Hale knew at age 11 what he wanted to be: a forester and a saw mill operator. “And I ended up doing both!” he said.

When Hale was in high school, a man set up a portable saw mill on the edge of Lisbon Falls, just a five-minute walk from home. “I used to go up there after school,” Hale remembered.

When Hale was 16, he started his first operation, cutting cords of firewood from pine tops across the Androscoggin River in Durham. He employed a man who yarded and trucked for him, as well. “So I had a little bit of business experience there,” Hale explained. The next year, his operation peeled spruce pulp wood. “Peeling spruce is one of the worst jobs ever invented!” he said.

After graduating from Lisbon Falls High School in 1939, he entered the Forestry Program at the University of Maine in Orono.

When World War II began, Hale joined ROTC. At the end of his sophomore year, he was in the reserves; and in 1943, at the end of his junior year, he was called into active service. He served in the Army for three years in Infantry, Armor and Cavalry. Later, he served in the Sixth Cavalry group of the Army of Occupation in post-war Germany.

After the Army, Hale returned to the University for his senior year, graduating in 1947. Then, he entered Yale University’s Master of Forestry Program. After graduation in 1948, he “got a crosscut saw, a new axe, bought a truck and went to logging.”

In 1950, Hale also bought a small circular saw mill and ran it portable in several Androscoggin County locations.

When that pocket of the market disappeared, he shut his mill down and became a saw mill consultant, helping people such as Monson’s Moosehead Manufacturing set up mills. Soon, though, the University of Maine offered him a position in the Forest Products Lab, beginning 1966.

Two years later, he began teaching courses such as “Wood Processing,” “Primary Processing” and “Wood Drying and Preservation.” His career at the University spanned 24 years, and he taught many young people, several of whom became foresters in the Rangeley region, including Mark Beauregard, Frank Conlon, Pete Johnson, Michael Quinn, Trish Quinn, and Dan Simonds.

For 20 years, Hale served as the adviser for the University of Maine Woodsmen’s Team. The men and women he helped competed with other colleges in events such as crosscut, bucksaw, chopping horizontal, chopping vertical, log rolling and the pack race where competitors rushed through the woods with 40-pound packs on their backs.

Hale’s dedication to forestry also includes substantial volunteer work.

He also volunteers for the Bethel Historical Society and is researching documents about local timber cutting in the 1800s, early dockyards and the tantalizing tales of Maine men who built timber rafts and sailed them to England.

When asked what he would like to tell the young people of Maine, Hale said, “The forest resource of this country is what made this country great. The settlers immediately began using the forest as a resource. Essentially, it ran the country: it provided fuel for heat and for cooking, and initially for power and for trade.

“The Maine forest is still here,” he continued, “and will continue to be so — an industrial resource providing many high-paying jobs of a permanent nature. It’s important that they use high-quality management techniques to maximize the many benefits of the forest.”

The Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum congratulates Hale and his family: his brothers Elliott Jr. and David; his wife, Jan Dumont Hale; their daughter, Heather Hale-Nivus, her husband, David Nivus, and their daughters, Corinne and Jocelyn.

The public is invited to view the Logger’s Hall of Fame plaque at the Rangeley Lakes Region Logging Museum, 221 Stratton Road, 864-3939, when the museum opens on June 18.

On July 25, during the Friday Evening Program of the Logging Festival, the museum will celebrate the 30th year of the Logger’s Hall of Fame as it inducts new honorees. For more information, visit www.rlrlm.org.