Plum Creek mill hosts auction

PABLO - Monte Jennison never thought he'd be back at the Plum Creek sawmill, but that's exactly where he found himself last Thursday morning. As he walked through the rain and stopped by his old work station, Jennison, of Polson, remembered life before the mill closed. Employed there for 20 years, Jennison had not been back since nearly a year earlier when the mill officially shut down. Rick Dennison, his friend and former co-worker, called him up asking for help loading some items he had purchased the night before at the mill's auction.

The auction, held last Wednesday, lasted from nine in the morning until nearly midnight, and brought with it a final sense of loss. The file room, like other buildings around the mill, carries memories of when the mill was active. Clocks tick away the time, unaware that workers no longer watch them waiting for the end of their shift. Calendars abound, stopped on June of last year, still marking the passage of time, but in a way no one had foreseen.

"I had no idea I was going to be here today," Jennison said. "I thought I'd never see this place again."

Maynards, a liquidation, auction and appraisal company hired by Plum Creek, operated the sale.

"It definitely exceeded expectations," Mike Seibold, a special project manager out of Maynards' Vancouver office, said of the auction. "It was a better sale than expected."

Despite its length and the rainy weather, at least 50 bidders were present right until the end of the auction, Seibold said.

Many local buyers were present he said, while some came down from British Columbia and others from as far away as Chile and New Zealand.

Everything was sold and buyers have a 30-day period for all removal, with some extensions afforded based on the items purchased.

Most buildings will be taken down, but not the planer mill where Dennison and Jennison once worked as lumber graders. It, along with the truck shop and several dry sheds, will remain for the next business' use.

Like many other workers, Dennison and Jennison had held out hope that the mill would be purchased by another entity and possibly reopened.

"We were hoping someone else would buy it, but it ain't gonna happen," Dennison said.

"We knew it was coming," Jennison said, "We just hoped we'd have another two years, five years."

It was a good paying job and it's clear that both men miss it. They were making $19.15 an hour when the mill was shut down on June 24, 2009, a year ago today.

"There are no jobs around here," Dennison said, "What are you going to do? Get a job at $9.50 an hour?"

Jennison and Dennison now attend Salish Kootenai College in the hope of acquiring new skills that will help them re-enter the job market.

"Forty-six and going back to school," Jennison said. "It just don't seem right. I thought I was going to retire."

For these men, coming back feels both strange and sad.

"It should be running. We should be making wood," Jennison said. Following the auction, the mill that once provided a livelihood for over one hundred people will be stripped bare. In 30 days almost everything will be gone, from the smallest saw blade to the largest front end loader.

Both men collect unemployment while going to school and trying to find another job that can support them. If they can't find jobs here they just might have to look elsewhere, a prospect that disheartens Jennison.

"I don't want to move," he said. "I've lived here all my life, but if a guy can't find work, he might have to."