The population of Quincy was a little larger Aug. 22-24 when a number of men who worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the 1950s held a reunion at the Quincy Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Most of those attending the reunion worked in the Plumas National Forest during the summers, some one season and others several. Not all of the men attending the reunion knew each other, because they represented various crews, sites and years.

Most of the 10-man crews worked under the K-V Work Act as tree pruners and firefighters, and a few worked in blister rust control efforts.

Essentially, the work involved pruning off all the limbs of standing timber from four to 18 inches in diameter up to 18 feet. The growth of the tree from the point where the lower limbs were pruned off yielded clear lumber (no knots), which would create a butt log of higher quality lumber and improve sales.

One of the goals of the pruners in their reunion activities was to determine if the timber harvested some 40-50 years later lived up to that expectation. A retired Forest Service silviculturist who has been active in the Retired Federal Workers Association in the area, agreed to attend the reunion and attempted to help the returning workers find places where they worked in both tree pruning and firefighting.

Most of those attending the reunion were recruited from colleges operated by the Adventist Church, including La Sierra University, Union College and Loma Linda University.

Most of the men now live nowhere near the schools they attended. Attendees came to the reunion from North Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado, Nebraska, California, Utah and other states. However, southern California had the most representatives.