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Lumberjack World Championships draw competitors from more than a dozen states to northern Wisconsin

WI: LUMBERJACK WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

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    Wisconsin (WCCO) — For 66 years, the Lumberjack World Championships have brought the world’s best to Hayward, Wisconsin.

The skills that helped shape this region have become a test of strength, speed, and balance.

More than 100 competitors from around the world are here this week, chasing world titles in chopping, sawing, speed climbing, log rolling and the boom run.

Organizers say it’s a connection of the past and present.

“We have everything here. We’ve got the full complement of events, secondly is the history. This actually was an old holding pond for the sawmill back in the 1800s,” said Samantha LaSalle, event director for the Lumberjack World Championships.

For her husband, Adam LaSalle, who grew up in central New York, that history connects him to his family’s logging business.

“The athletics side of it, with the natural resources side of it. I grew up in a rural area with a family logging business and grew up cutting trees. That’s something that I thoroughly enjoy,” said LaSalle, who has been a professional lumberjack for over 20 years.

Others grew up just down the road.

Deven Blair from the town of Winter, Wisconsin, still chases speed climbing records.

While Connor Birdsong has spent years mastering the delicate balance of log rolling and the controlled chaos of the boom run.

“Your head, your feet, your core, everything needs to be involved to really be successful at it,” said Birdsong, a professional log roller and boom runner.

For six-time Boom Run World Champion Meredith Ingbretson, who was born and raised in Hayward, it’s simply home.

“It’s just a part of my heart and so being able to share what our community in town can offer people from across the world, it’s just really special,” said Ingbretson.

That sense of community is felt by the competitors representing 16 states and nine countries.

“Everybody supports everybody. Win or lose, we’re all happy. We all love what we do,” said Deven Blair, a professional lumberjack.

For generations, these waters have been part of a Northwoods tradition. These athletes know how to navigate them.

The party starts with comedian Charlie Berens performing Wednesday night.

The festival and competition begin on Thursday with finals on Saturday.

You’ll find more information and tickets at: lumberjackworldchampionships.com

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Teacher donates kidney to help student’s mother move up donor list

Click here for updates on this story    BURTON, Ohio (WEWS) -- For Hannah Bomback, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Berkshire Middle School, it's a lesson worth emulating outside the classroom.This past April, Bomback donated one of her kidneys to help the mother of one of her students get closer to a lifesaving transplant.It's been a journey for Arieauna Johnson as her mother, Melissa, battles kidney failure."It’s been difficult. That’s why I've been helping her a lot," Arieauna Johnson explained."I have something called polycystic kidney disease, and cysts grow on the kidney and take over the function, but they also get very large," Melissa Johnson said. "So I had to get both my kidneys removed. They were like 10 pounds of kidney each."Melissa, a mother of five, started dialysis in 2022 when her kidneys began to fail and then moved back to Northeast Ohio."We spent five years in Tennessee and came back when my health started to get bad because we wanted to get closer to the Cleveland Clinic, because they're the best of the best," Melissa Johnson said.Bomback, who taught Johnson's four older children, became worried when she noticed Arieauna was absent from class last fall."When she was absent, I was asking another teacher if they knew why she was missing, and I found out her mom was having surgery," Bomback said. "I knew I needed to do something."After weeks of researching, Bomback made the decision to donate a kidney, despite not being a perfect match for Melissa."My mother was born with one kidney — so I knew that a completely normal life is possible with one kidney," Bomback said.Bomback donated one of her kidneys to a stranger this past April through the National Kidney Registry. That donation generated a voucher that moved Melissa, who has O-negative blood type, up the transplant waiting list."It was pretty smooth, I'll say," Bomback said of the donation process."Now they're actively looking for a living donor for me, which would not have been possible if she hadn't have done that," Melissa Johnson said. "I would have just hoped for a deceased donor, which could take years, if ever. Getting a living donor is a much better option."There is no perfect match yet, but Melissa said the act of generosity has given her hope."It's the thought of getting my life back," Melissa Johnson said. "There's so many people waiting for a kidney right now. You can live a perfectly normal life with one kidney. So if you're willing to share your spare, it could help a lot of people.""When you give to other people, your life is made so much better," Bomback said. "It feels weird because I personally have gotten so much joy out of it. I've benefited so much."Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
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