Maple Falls-When Wayne Beech died unexpectedly last month, his wife, Danna, worried that his dream of a Black Mountain Forestry Center would be gone too.

"He was the driving force," she said. "He had the dream for it, he had a lot of support, but to expect any one person to pick up that ball, well... he not only had the dream, he ad a lot of time.

"People were asking how they could help, but I was at a loss at what to tell them." Said Danna Beech, postmaster for the U.S. Post Office here.

But organizers, encouraged by the community's support for the project following Wayne's Beech's death Oct. 4, are making ambitious plans to establish the logging museum, demonstration site, tourist camp and educational programs, all to further the understanding of sustainable forestry.

The center's board members will hold an organizational meeting next week to mobilize volunteers.

Wayne Beech had retired in eh 1984 from the US Forest Service, where he managed federal timber sites for 25 years. The week before he died, he was at the demonstration site near Silver Lake Park, using a backhoe to dig 15-foot holes to anchor the "tie-downs" that would hold in place a logging tower.

"That's the kind of dedication and effort (the center) needed to keep it going," Danna Beech said. "I just pray it all comes together."

Bellingham Land-use consultant Anthony Raab is among those working to keep the project alive.

"This is Wayne Beech's dream and the family wanted very much to continue his legacy," Raab said. "He was a retired forester who loved nothing more than being in the woods."

Working with the Whatcom County Parks and Recreation Department, Crown Pacific Ltd. and other organizations, the board of directors has already received $60,000 in grant money and permission to build much of the project at Silver Lake Park.

"We're trying to get more visitors to the Foothills area, and it is nice to be able to show people the history of the community," said Roger DeSpain, head of the county parks department."We're more like a facilitator; they are using the park area to make this happen."

The project is designed a s a trip through time, with the park's Gerdrum House-building 1892 from one cedar log, serving as a museum with exhibits and antique logging tools. Outside, the center will have more antique machinery and a demonstration logging site.

The 100-foot tower will be rigged with a "clothesline" to haul logs from a nearby hillside to a loader and truck, where they will be carried to a sawmill/shake mill at the site. It's a technique that was used in the Foothills' forests for decades.

"We want to show people how a 2 by 4 is created, from the start, " Raab said. "The concept is much bigger than a museum."

In fact , organizers hope to develop educational programs, for both school children and tourists who might stay in "Forestry Camp" cabins, visit the museum and demonstration site, and then take tours of neighboring woodlands to talk with professional timber workers and biologists.

Wayne Beech got the idea for the center after federal decisions to protect species like the spotted owl and marbled murrellet set back the timber industry and cost thousands of loggers their jobs, said Danna Beech.

"It was his dream to get the work out and teach people about the forests, " she said. "It's not something we get to save forever. It's something given to use to care for and use."

Raab said the center will help people understand their relationship to the woods.

"This idea that we can never cut another tree down again is a statement that doesn't understand our relationship with he forest," he said. "We are all part of a system that's based on a renewable resource."

Organizers hope to have the museum site working and school programs in pace by next year. With construction of the forestry camp to begin in 2001.

They also hope to promote local cottage industries based on wood, perhaps by setting up a tent at the site where woodworkers could maintain working displays and sell their handicrafts Raab said.

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