TRENTON — On summer nights, the Great Maine Lumberjack Show on Route 1A is a showcase for brawny men in flannel who can chop logs, throw axes, and climb trees in record time.

But one afternoon a week, the grounds of the show are home to kids in bathing suits, a 12-foot-long western red cedar log, and a lot of giggling.

And while owner “Timber” Tina Scheer loves hosting and participating in the evening show, it is the afternoons, during which she teaches logrolling to area children, that mean the most to her.

During the lessons, Scheer stands in the Great Maine Lumberjack Show’s logrolling tank, holding one end of the 12-foot log while the kids run forward and backward to spin the log and try to make their opponent fall into the water.

“Come on, Slaney, get this guy,” Scheer called to SlaneyRose Jordan, who was engaged in a logrolling battle with Morris Betesh one recent afternoon.

“I am woman,” Scheer yelled up encouragement to the 12-year-old from Bar Harbor. “Watch me roll!”

Jordan fell off first, signalling an end to the match and a victory for Betesh. The two would have more chances later in the hourlong lesson, but no one keeps track of the wins and losses. The kids say they like the lessons for the chance to meet new people and because the logrolling is fun.

“I thought it would be cool to try something different,” said Melinda Bartlett, 11, whose mother heard of winter logrolling lessons through her job at the Bar Harbor YMCA.

Bartlett passed the word about the lessons to Jordan during the school year. Betesh, a Bar Harbor summer resident, heard about logrolling in a YMCA camp earlier in the summer.

“I like the competitions, when we get on the log and go against each other,” Jordan said. “I like watching other people, because you can learn things and improve the way you roll.”

Scheer’s vision goes further than just summer lessons, however. The former two-time International Logrolling Association world champion sees some of these kids competing like she did. Scheer feels that it’s her responsiblity — and the duty of the logrolling experts all over the country — to make it happen.

“I hope that if it’s fun enough for them, one day Melinda looks at me and says that she wants to compete,” said the 37-year-old, who lives in world logrolling capital Hayward, Wis., during the winter. “And then I’d be so proud. It would really be cool. We have a lot of fun out here, but the goal is to get them to Hayward.”

A natural for Maine

Scheer and husband Bill Schumway started the Great Maine Lumberjack Show in Trenton to be near the tourists, but bringing a timber sports demonstration show and logrolling lessons to Maine is a natural. Logrolling is said to have started on rivers such as the Penobscot, Union, and Machias.

According to lumberjack lore, Scheer said, the most efficient way to move logs from the forests to the timber mills was to send them down a river. If a jam developed, a log driver would have to pick his way across the floating carpet of logs and find the key log to unlock the jam.

One mistake and the driver would end up below the surface and probably die.

In modern times, with trucks transporting logs down four-lane highways, logrolling has become purely recreational. Rollers practice in tanks such as the one in Trenton, but competition logrolling is usually done in a lake.

Two rollers on the same log start at a dock and push themselves onto the water. In the first round they have three minutes to try to make each other fall. If time goes by and both rollers are still standing, they switch to a log with a smaller diameter and more time until someone gets wet. Matches are decided in a best-of-three format.

The only rule once the rollers are on the log is that they cannot pass a center line that is repainted before each race. If one rollers thinks the other may have crossed the line, a judge can check the suspect’s shoes for red paint.

Rollers will do just about anything to make their opponents fall.

“When you get into a heated match with two heavy pros, they will splash water into each other’s faces, they can bob a log to try to knock their opponent off, you can take your outside foot and kick the log,” Scheer said. “Also, one might try to move to the center of the log to sink the other roller. It’s extra work when you get water on your feet.”

All of this moving around requires agility and balance. Good rollers also have a backstep, which is when the logroller rolls the log backward and can make quick changes to the speed. Once they have a backstep, rollers just have to learn to increase the time they can stay on the log.

“My time hasn’t really gotten any better,” Jordan said. “But my balance is getting better and I’ve learned a backstep. That’s really hard.”

Logrolling gaining recognition

Although logrolling remains popular in Wisconsin and other Midwestern states, few children in the Northeast even know such a sport exists.

Denise Marquardt, the secretary of the International Logrolling Association who also runs a logrolling camp in Hayward, said the number of kids at her camp is up to 80. There were 68 amateurs at the logrolling championships in July, which may be down from years past.

“I think a lot of my kids had just started and felt they weren’t ready to compete this year,” she said.

Betesh, who is from suburban Eatontown, N.J., told his friends about the lessons. They had a typical reaction.

“They think it’s weird,” said the 11-year-old.

Scheer wants to change that attitude.

To that end, she has worked with MTV’s “The Real World” show that featured a group of young adults who lived together in Boston and worked at a children’s center.

Sean Duffy, one of the show’s cast members and the brother of the president of the International Logrolling Association, wanted to teach logrolling to kids in Boston and drove up to Trenton to pick up a log from Scheer. The trip and a few moments at the Great Maine Lumberjack Show were televised.

That log is now at the Bar Harbor YMCA for winter logrolling classes.

And when ESPN comes to Trenton in September to film the Stihl Timber Sports Series, Scheer plans to make sure people know about the logrolling lessons.

“I want to highlight the logrolling school in front of the crowd,” Scheer said. “I figure I have their full attention, it’s my show, and I want the kids to come out and roll. They’ll come out in a packed arena, get a huge round of applause, and hopefully that will make them come back for lessons again.”

As for budding logrollers, Scheer’s greatest hope may be her son, Charlie Schumway, who placed third in the 7-9 age group in July’s championships. It was his first-ever competition.

It’s no wonder Schumway, 9, is so good. Scheer was three months pregnant with him when she won her second logrolling world title.

“If I could have held him over a log when he was one month old, I would have,” Scheer said.

“He cracks me up, because when I watch Charlie roll, I see a lot of Tina in him,” said Marquardt, who was the logrolling champ in 1991 and runner-up in 1990 and 1992.

Schumway’s skill was evident when he went up against the other kids. Blessed with a quick backstep and light body, he fell just once during the lesson.

“It’s a lot of fun and I’ve always just done it, I guess,” Schumway said with a shy smile that belies his scrappy nature during competition.

Scheer also wants to encourage more women to logroll. Martha Schoppe, a 19-year-old from Ellsworth, helps Scheer with the lessons. Schoppe just learned the sport a few months ago, but Scheer said she is almost good enough to join a Wisconsin-based traveling lumberjill show.

Schoppe, who attends Oberlin College in Ohio, has thought about bringing a log to school to teach rolling.

“Maybe I’ll just bring one and not ask,” she quipped.

Eventually, Scheer wants bring the logrolling world championships to Maine from Hayward, where they have been for more than 40 years. In the meantime, attracting more kids to the sport would be gratifying enough.

“I really hope in a few years we have a ton of kids out here,” she said. “I could be the den mother of the logrollers. Just call me the rolling granny.”