Royal Purple

Issue date: 9/10/08 Section: Taste of Whitewater 2008

Media Credit: Photo submitted Due to popular demand, the lumberjack show will return to the Taste of Whitewater this year.

As residents drive down the streets of Whitewater in the coming weeks, they will slowly notice the trees changing into their fall colors, shedding leaves that fall to the grass and sidewalks below them.

However, a more exciting display of nature's wooden giants will be available in the Whitewater community Saturday in the form of Fred Scheer's Lumberjack show at the second annual Taste of Whitewater on the Cravath lakefront.

Those coming out to the Whitewater fall festival will be entertained by three shows in one day. The shows feature a wide range of events, including axe throwing, hot sawing, chainsaw carving, underhand chopping, speed poll climbing and log rolling.

The group was founded by Fred Scheer. Scheer, who also performs alongside the rest of the lumberjacks, has been in the lumberjack entertainment business for more than twenty years. He has competed for over 30 years and has won nine World Championships.

Scheer and the other lumberjacks have toured throughout the United States, Canada, Africa and Australia, competing and performing at fairs, sport shows, corporate gatherings and specialty events.

They have also been featured on national television, including ESPN's Great Outdoor games and ABC's Wide World of Sports.

It's not all about the national and worldwide scene for Scheer's though. The group is rooted in Wisconsin, playing nearly 200 shows each year in their two amphitheatres in Hayward, Wis.

Residents of Whitewater and surrounding communities will be able to enjoy the world-renowned group of lumberjacks for the second year in a row, displaying their talents in a wide array of events right here their own backyard.

Young and old can sit on the nearby bleachers or layout on a blanket in the lawn seating area and watch performers throw an axe at a five-inch bullseye from 20 feet away; look to the sky as springboard choppers climb up a tree, insert a board in the tree and chop off the top and admire the speed and agility of boom runners as they race across nine floating logs.

Scheer's group and their authentically Wisconsin lumberjack show will be available to all those at the Taste of Whitewater for three shows on Saturday: at 1, 4 and 7:30 p.m.

The first annual Taste of Whitewater was deemed a major success, with an estimated 1,500 people attending the event, and one of the brighter spots of the festival was Scheer's Lumberjack Show.

"There's a lot of entertainment that takes place at the Taste," Committee Chair Shane Brossard said "but no act brings out more people than the lumberjack shows. Make sure you get to the shows early if you want bleacher seats."

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