A sport once exclusive to lumberjacks is today enjoyed by kids and adults alike at the local Y.
That’s because Abby Hoeschler’s passion for logrolling runs deep.
Hoeschler is the current record holder for the Women’s Boom Run, a timed competition where two challengers race across a series of floating logs. She’s also the 28-year-old CEO of Key Log Rolling, a Minneapolis-based enterprise making synthetic logs that float and spin just like the historic sport’s timber of choice, Western red cedar.
It’s that very tree — the giant arborvitae — that led her to build a business that has made logrolling more accessible to aquatics facilities. Plunking a 500-pound cedar log in a swimming pool presents certain logistical challenges, as Judy Scheer Hoeschler — Abby’s mother and a seven-time World Logrolling Champion herself — can attest. The Hoeschler clan, all logrolling enthusiasts, felt this was a major impediment to the sport’s growth.
So Abby, fresh from college with an art history degree, pioneered a new, much-more portable log.
The sport is flourishing. Key Log Rolling started 150 programs last year alone, many of those at city pools and health facilities.
