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The 2025 National Railsplitting
Festival came to an end on Sunday evening with the final events
being the re-christening of the city of Lincoln, a drawing for a
Remington rifle donated by Wells Firearms, and the Professional Rail
Split.
At 3 p.m. the contests on the back lawn of the Postville courthouse
paused so that everyone could go to the front lawn for the
reenactment of the christening of the city by Abraham Lincoln. Mayor
Tracy Welch read the narrative, and at the appropriate time, Lincoln
cut a watermelon in half, squeezed juice into a cup then christened
the city. This reenactment was followed by the singing of the
National Anthem.
Everyone then returned to the competition area on the back lawn. The
next order of business was the drawing for the rifle. The gun had
been donated by Jeremy Wells of Wells Firearms and was raffled off
with the proceeds going to future festivals.
The gun was won by Jerry Hays of Lincoln. He will have the option to
have the gun personalized with his name as the winner of the 2025
raffle or he may opt to have the Railsplitter information instead.
Then it was time for the Professional Split.
This year there were eleven contenders, which is the highest number
participating in the past several years.
Those competitors were:
Tyler Pilchard of Downs
Jonathan Norin of LeRoy
Cody Friedlein of Downs
Jason Nunn of Munferdville KY
Bruce Muir of Lexington
Evan Combs of Bloomington
Hayden Pilchard of Downs
Zach Darnall of Bloomington
Casey Ballinger of Atlanta
Tony Swanson of Downs
Mike Enderlen of Lexington
The split went well for most of the contestnats, though as in the
split for the youngsters there were a couple of pretty stubborn logs
on the ground. Casey Ballinger of Atlanta had one such log and as a
result his finishing time was 10:18, far from first, but also not
the last one to finish. The officials stopped counting times at
seventh place. That time was recorded as 12:41 and belonged to Zach
Darnall. The last four to finish included Tyler Pilchard, Bruce
Muir, Tony Swanson and Mike Enderlen.
This year, the first two places in the contest was sponsored by the
Knauer Family in memory of Daris Knauer who passed away in November,
2024.
The first finisher was Evan Coombs
with a remarkable time of 3:11.
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Coming in second was Cody Friedlein
with a time of 4:29
Third place went to Hayden Pilchard
with a time of 6:44
Jonathon Norin came in fourth with
a time of 7:30.
The fifth place finisher was Jason
Nunn with an overall time of 8:22 plus a 30 second penalty when it
was discovered he had left one wedge in his log.
Throughout the two days of contests, there is a running tally of who
is collecting the most point to be named the overall splitter of the
year.
Before the final competition Jonathon Norin was at the top of the
chart with 36 points and Cody Friedlein was second with 33 points.
Because of their respective finishes in the professional split, the
final tally brought the two within one point of each other, but
Norin still prevailed. With 41 points he was named the Overall Best
Railplitter for 2025. Friedlein ended with a total of 40 points to
secure that second place spot.
Rankin thanks everyone for coming out to watch and participate. He
acknowledged the sponsors and the volunteers who helped make the
annual event possible and invited anyone who was interested in being
a part of next years event to reach out to the Logan Railsplitting
Association.
[Nila Smith] |
