OROFINO, Idaho (AP) - In the old days, springboard chopping was anchored in utility and necessity. Today, it's rooted in sport.

So it was Sunday when 43-year-old David Moses Jr., of Snoqualmie, Wash., readied his two springboards and ax at the 61st Annual Orofino Lumberjack Days Logging Show in front of a crowd of several hundred.

"This will be my 18th year," Moses said of competing in logger sports throughout the country. "I've been coming here for quite a while now. My whole family does it."

The springboard competition was one of more than a dozen events, ranging from power sawing and ax throwing to crosscut sawing and tree topping, that drew about 50 professional logger sport competitors to the show.

"It really doesn't fluctuate that much from year to year," Randy Steiner, announcer for the show, said about the number of competitors. But unlike yesteryear when most of the lumberjacks were schooled in the woods, contemporary Jacks and Jills, said Steiner, are more likely to have learned and honed their skills while competing.

"Loggers have been playing these games forever," said David Cramsey, a lumberjack from Veneta, Ore. "They'd do it back in the day of the camps, just to pass the time."

Springboard chopping, explained Steiner, was necessary when big trees were felled.

The base of such a tree is usually splayed out, full of pitch and mostly unusable. So loggers had to chop a pocket, insert a springboard, jump atop the makeshift platform, then chop another pocket and insert another board until they climbed to where a saw could be used.

Moses and the other springboard competitors raced the clock by inserting and negotiating two boards before chopping through a chunk of white pine.

All of which underscored yet another difference between then and now.

"Around here we run into challenges because of the way the industry has gone, and some of the mills have shut down," said Steiner. "So our ability to get the right kind of chopping wood, and the right type of wood to use in the sawing events is becoming more and more challenging."

The logging show here used to be a reflection of the local economy. The timber industry boomed into the 1970s, only to begin a steady downturn through the '80s and '90s, and then a leveling out that persists today. Reduced timber harvesting on federal lands and mechanization are generally considered reasons for fewer people earning a living in the woods, along with the disappearance of the skills displayed every year at the logging show.

"It's like farming. It's all machinery now," said Kenny Weller, a logging contractor here. "That's all history," he said, sweeping a hand across the logging arena. "That's not what you see in the woods these days."

Known as the "singing logger," Weller offered yet another rendition of the National Anthem to start Sunday's show. He also said the future depends on the likes of young people like Brad French, a member of the University of Idaho Logger Sport Team.

"We enjoy it, that's why we're here," said French, the 20-year-old captain of a team that includes about 15 "Jacks" and five "Jills."

"I do crosscut sawing events, chain saw, ax throw and I just started chopping, but I haven't competed yet," said Nicole Goins, 22, of Deary, who studies animal science at UI and is president of the logging team. "We travel to Oregon and Montana (to compete) and we'll go to California this year."

She and French said they and other members are constantly reminded, and take pride in the fact, that they're helping keep alive skills that might have otherwise been lost to history.

Eric Hoberg, a 25-year-old forester and professional lumberjack from Missoula, Mont., said he came from the student ranks to do events like tree topping, having never done such a thing for a living. "I used to compete at the University of Montana."

Steiner said many of the older professionals are products of the woods. But many of the younger competitors "have grown up around logger sports in their families."

That's the way it was for him, said Moses. "I watched my dad and asked him if he would train me because I didn't trust anyone else." The elder Moses also competed Sunday. "So my dad is the one who taught me. I didn't start doing it until I was 26."

The show, which started shortly after 10 a.m., continued through the afternoon with events happening simultaneously throughout the arena.

"There is a future," said Steiner, explaining that there will always be a product of the work ethic demanded in the woods. "We just do what's needed to get the job done."