T. Jack Byrd

Lafayette County District 4 Commissioner T. Jack Byrd was the guest of honor at the Rotary Club of Mayo luncheon on Wednesday, Sept. 11, and he offered a few intimate details about his rich and varied 71 years of life. With his oftentimes hilarious, yet innocent sense of humor, it was a lively and entertaining afternoon.

Byrd’s early days

“I really don’t know where to start at, but I’ll start whenever I was borned,” Byrd said at the beginning of his recitation, which immediately engaged the audience.

He said he was born on Oct. 11, 1942, and was the first male child in the family.

“My daddy had three girls prior to me and then I come along,” Byrd said. “I reckon he thought I was something special.”

Byrd said Fred Moses’ mama delivered all the Byrd children.

“There was 11 head of us,” he said. “Seven girls and four boys.”

Byrd said he was told that when he was two and a half hours old, his daddy couldn’t resist and took him outside to show him off to his crew, who were warming up beside a bonfire just after daylight.

“He must have been pretty well proud of me,” Byrd said, grinning.

His earliest recollection of his life was when he was about 10 years old.

“I went to school part time,” he said, laughing. “Whenever I could, I’d go and whenever I couldn’t, he’d make me work,” he added, speaking about his father, and still laughing.

Commissioner Byrd

Byrd has held County Commission Seat 4 for the last 24 years. He said when he first told his brother J.W. that he was going to run for office 24 years ago, J.W. said, “Well, you’re about as stupid as anyone I’ve ever known.”

Byrd wasn’t deterred by his brother’s comment because his mind was made up. So, he ran for office and won, intending to serve for only one term. Back in those days, he said, the commissioners didn’t even have a budget.

“We was just there,” Byrd said. “Whatever come up at a board meeting is what we done. For so many years we were just operating in the dark.”

Byrd said as soon as County Clerk Ricky Lyons took office everything changed for the better and things have been running smoothly and efficiently since.

After Byrd’s first term was up he was coerced into running again by some of his constituents.

“There was four of us in the race and I got 58 percent of the votes,” Byrd said. “I ain’t never had another opponent since then.”

When Lyons asked Byrd about his most memorable commission meeting, Byrd said, “The one I sure remember real good was the time Attorney Conrad Bishop called a meeting ‘cause I had told them to haul some rock down there to a church in Hatch Bend to fix the driveway.”

The pastor later wrote a thank you letter, Byrd said, and “Conrad got it.”

Byrd said Bishop called a special meeting with the road department and started raising Cain about them hauling rock onto private property. Byrd set Conrad straight and told him he was the one who authorized it.

“I said that ain’t private property and every church in this county is not private property,” Byrd told Conrad. “If we need a load of rock or a load of dirt there, or need to grade the road, I’m 100 percent to stand behind it and that’s the way it’s gonna be,” he added. “Well, I shut him up,” he said with a grin.

The logging business

Byrd said his family’s logging business started off with oxen and mules. They skid cross ties by hand and then sawed them in two with a cross-cut saw, he said, and there aren’t many people still alive in this country who have used this old method.

Once the logs were cut they would haul them using the oxen and mules and then load them onto a trailer that was hooked to an old Farmall tractor. There weren’t many roads back then, Byrd said, so it was tough work transporting timber from the forest out to the trucks on the paved road. That timber would then be hauled to Branford and loaded onto boxcars.

“The first time I ever carried a load down to Branford I was 13 years old,” Byrd said.”I went to the woods that weekend and got a load of ties with another fella.”

Byrd said he had gone to school that morning and when he got home he found out his father didn’t have anyone to haul the cross ties down to Branford.

“He needed them, so I got in the truck and carried ‘em down there,” said Byrd. “It didn’t even have no brakes on it. He like to had a fit when he seen me drive into town with that load of ties, but we made it,” he added, laughing. “You get to thinking back at how stupid the things we did were, but that was the way of life back then.”

In later years the Byrds started hauling pulp wood and then pine wood. As the company grew, they added more modern equipment, including their first skidder.

“Whenever they came out with grapples and shears, we thought we died and went to heaven,” said Byrd.

The new equipment, he said, changed the whole world of logging for the Byrd family.

“As things changed, we changed with it,” Byrd said.

When they first started hauling logs, they hauled about 25-30 loads a week and thought they were really making it big.

“Today, with the nine crews we’ve accumulated over the years, we average over 500 loads a week,” he said. “Last year I think it was 575.”

The logging industry, he said, has become so machinized that it is nothing like it used to be when he was a kid.

“You just got to go with the times or you can’t stay in business,” he said. “If you went back to the choker and sawing it down, you wouldn’t last two weeks.”

The Byrd’s build their own log trailers and rebuild whatever they can. Many times they purchase land and timber together.

“When we cut the timber, we turn around and plant it back,” he said.

The Byrd family also owns Byrd’s Power Equipment. Between the two companies they employ about 80 people and are one of the largest private employers in Lafayette County, according to Property Appraiser Tim Walker.

Of the Byrd family, Walker said, “They’ve worked and they’ve earned what they’ve accomplished. I’m proud of them and proud for them.”

Memorable moments in logging

Byrd recalled one time he was in Perry sawing some hardwood. It was getting late in the day and they only had two more trees to load onto the truck. He said he grabbed his chainsaw and planted his feet in the ground, one behind the other.

“I went to sawing on that tree and my foot kept trying to leave back there and I said, what the heck is this? I was standing right on a rattlesnake and had about this much of his head out from under my foot. I pulled the saw out from the tree and sawed that snake’s head off,” he said, laughing.

Another memorable and somber moment in Byrd’s logging career is when he saved a man’s life who was trapped in the middle of a huge forest fire. Numerous crews, including the Byrds, were all battling the blaze. Byrd was at one area of the fire and then went to another location and stayed a couple of hours, but he said something kept gnawing at him. He had a bad feeling in his gut and just knew he was supposed to be back where he was earlier.

“I reckon it was the Old Master working on me,” he said. “I just had the feeling that I had to get back over there.”

When he went back he learned there was a man trapped in the fire and the fire crew had lost radio communication with him. A young man ran up to Byrd and told him it was his father, Cooter, who was trapped in the fire and he showed Byrd where he last saw him. Byrd said he jumped into a man’s 4-wheel drive truck and told the driver to head into the woods. Determined to find Cooter, they forged ahead driving over downed trees and directly through the fire to a small clearing.

“He was standing on the tracks of that bull dozer in a hole,” said Byrd. “That fire had him surrounded. He didn’t know what to do.”

Byrd said he kept yelling to Cooter, who was in obvious shock, to get in the truck, which he finally did.

“When we got about halfway out, Mr. Cooter broke down crying and telling us he’d been praying to the Master,” Byrd said.

Byrd is convinced it was a divine voice that led him directly to Cooter. A big “to-do”, he said, was later put on to honor him for saving Cooter’s life. He said the forestry service claimed they had helicopters looking for him that day, but Byrd said he didn’t see any.

The Byrd family

The Byrds have also been in and out of the dairy business. They now have about 800 cows that they milk and they also grow their own corn and silage.

“We’ve all worked well together, so far,” Byrd said of his family businesses. “We don’t always agree because we’re bull headed,” he added with a chuckle.

He praised his brothers, but especially his sister Benita, whom he said is “the main backbone of the office and taking care of everything.”

“If it weren’t for her, we couldn’t operate,” he said. “She sees about everything there, and if something comes up she can give ‘em an answer right quick without having to ask us. We just let her do what she needs to, because she ain’t gonna do nothin’ that don’t benefit us.”

Byrd said he appreciates all the business he gets from the folks in Lafayette County and then he listed all the other services they provide, which are too numerous to mention.

Sheriff Brian Lamb said, “This county and community appreciates the Byrds because they do a lot. In my lifetime I’ve just slowly seen them growing. If you see a big metal building in the middle of nowhere on US 27, that’s the Byrd’s shop. You’d think who in the world would build this? There’s nothing around here.”

On Saturdays, especially, people come from all around the surrounding counties to take advantage of all their services and supplies. With the variety of items available in the store for both men and women some have come to refer to it as Byrd’s Mall.