By CURT ANDERSON
AP Farm Writer
SHELBYVILLE, Ky. (AP) - If he no longer could grow tobacco, Larry Butler says, he might have to abandon the outdoor life he loves here and find a job in a big-city factory.
''We need this crop because we can't guarantee this much money any other way,'' says Butler, 39, who grows tobacco as a tenant farmer near Shelbyville, 25 miles east of Louisville. ''I'm proud to be a tobacco farmer.''
While people elsewhere talk about tobacco's health effects, here - where broad, golden-green burley tobacco leaves rustle in the breeze - men and women on the farms and in the towns that depend on the golden leaf fear the end may be coming for a generations-long way of life.
Says Butler's wife, Tammy: ''That's what our life is and that's what we want to do.''
Farmers weren't mentioned in the $368.5 billion proposed tobacco deal negotiated between state attorneys general and tobacco companies this summer.
But as Congress prepares to take up the issue next year, some have proposed using the deal to end the federal programs that control tobacco production and guarantee a high price.
Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., for example, has proposed a buyout aimed at getting those who hold production quotas out of tobacco forever.
In places like Kentucky and North Carolina - where two-thirds of the nation's 1.7 billion-pound crop is grown - such ideas provoke fear of severe economic disruption, particularly in smaller, poorer areas far from cities and jobs.
Tobacco is grown in all but one Kentucky county by 59,000 farmers. Black barns - some even tucked between stores in suburbs - hold strips of the brown, sweet-smelling burley as it dries.
Most farmers grow just a few acres of tobacco along with other crops or livestock. But even that small amount provides enough cash to meet the mortgage, save for a child's college education or make payments on a tractor.
''It's money that flows through the community,'' said Lorraine Garkovich, a rural sociology professor at the University of Kentucky. ''It pays local bills at local stores.''
At Paul and Pat Hornback's 140-acre farm near Shelbyville, for example, one medium-sized barn of burley curing on a windy October day will net about $30,000 - far more than the Hornbacks could earn with almost anything else.
Indeed, an acre of tobacco in 1996 netted farmers up to $2,200, compared with $120 for an acre of corn and $76 an acre for soybeans.
''We'd have to sell the farm without it,'' said Pat Hornback, who bought the place with Paul 20 years ago when they first married.
Tobacco has remained concentrated in Kentucky, North Carolina and other southeastern states because of a 1938 law making it illegal to sell without a quota, or allotment. These were parceled out by the federal government to control production and price, and cannot be moved across county lines.
When a farm with a quota goes up for sale, the amount of tobacco that can be cultivated is a very real part of the land value. Its presence has allowed many small farmers to stay on the land instead of selling to developers or bigger farms.
The system also supports arrangements where people lease, sharecrop or work as tenant farmers for those with a quota.
Without the quota, Paul Hornback said, tobacco would move to larger farms in areas that could grow the crop with the least expense, probably under contract with cigarette makers. ''You're going to sacrifice the small growers,'' he said.
Still, the proposed buyout does appeal to some.
Ralph Quillin bought a 140-acre farm a few years back near Paris, Ky., with a tobacco quota of 11,000 pounds. Quillin doesn't do any farming - he hires a tenant and splits the proceeds.
For Quillin, 46, who runs a bustling leather and livestock equipment shop in town, the quota is a guaranteed side income of $6,000 a year ''for doing basically nothing.'' And the prospect of a $8-per-pound buyout, as proposed by Lugar, sounds attractive.
''If you pull out your checkbook and give me $8 a pound, we'll go to the bank today,'' he said. ''Eventually, the program is going to be over with.''
Yet even many farmers who say they see the handwriting on the wall want a longer transition period if government controls are lifted. Others say they are willing to try alternatives such as peppers or tomatoes, but wonder about demand.
And almost no one in Kentucky will admit they want to get out of tobacco because it causes health problems, Quillin added.
''In Kentucky, there really isn't a moral dilemma about growing tobacco,'' he said. ''It's raise tobacco or go broke.''
A Saturday morning wreck just west of South Boston was a contributing factor to a second wreck which occurred nearby, according to the Virginia State Police.
One person was injured during the two back-to-back crashes and she was later charged with driving under the influence, police said.
The first collision began near the south intersection of Rt. 659 and Rt. 682 at 10:45 a.m. The second collision occurred minutes later about 150 feet away, at the north intersection of Rt. 659 and Rt. 682.
The unusual occurrence of two indentically-numbered intersections was caused by the merging of Rt. 659 (River Road) with Rt. 682 (Berry Hill Road. Simultaneously, there is an approximate 150-foot division between two offshoots, Old Grubby Road (Rt. 682) and River Road (Rt. 682).
In the first collision, Rob Allen Betsinger, 35, of South Boston was driving towards South Boston when his 1992 Pontiac experienced engine trouble, according to the investigation.
He pulled off to the shoulder, but the engine began to sputter back to life, so he pulled back onto the roadway into the path of a Nissan driven by Tanya Ardell Barbour, 18, of Rt. 3, South Boston, police said.
No one was injured, but the collision caused an estimated $3,000 in damages to the Pontiac and $2,000 in damages to the Nissan, according to the investigation.
Betsinger was charged with reckless driving by Virginia State Trooper G.M. Gilliam.
The second wreck occurred minutes later at the north intersection of Rt. 659 and Rt. 682 when emergency personnel began to slow other vehicles down as they approached the first wreck, police explained.
Audrey C. Mitchell, 30, of Halifax was driving a 1982 Peugeot southbound on Rt. 659 when she came around the corner at too fast a speed, according to Virginia State Trooper R.T. Ridgeway, who investigated the second crash.
She lost control of the vehicle, crossed the centerline, struck an oncoming 1997 Ford pickup truck, then struck an embankment, according to the investigation.
That truck was driven by Frank Thomas McDowell Jr., 61, of South Boston. He was not injured.
Mitchel was injured and transported to the Halifax Regional Hospital for treatment. She was charged with driving under the influence by Trooper Ridgeway.
The Puegeot was declared a total loss, while the Ford pickup truck sustained an estimated $2,500 in damages, police said.
In another wreck investigated Saturday by the Virginia State Police, a fully-restored 1968 Ford Mustang was declared a total loss after a single-vehicle wreck on U.S. 501, just south of Halifax.
James Bennett Weaver, 20, of Halifax was headed north on U.S. 501 at a high rate of speed, when he lost control, ran off the right side, overcorrected, struck the median strip, and then overturned, police said.
The vehicle landed on its wheels in the passing lane of the southbound lane of U.S. 501, according to the investigation.
Weaver and a passenger, Sabrina Ann Talley, 18, escaped with minor injuries in the 2:44 p.m. incident, police said.
Weaver was charged by Virginia State Trooper R.L. Hodges with reckless driving.
Another single-vehicle wreck occurred early Sunday morning on Rt. 642, five-tenths of a mile west of U.S. 501.
James Stewart Canada, 32, of Halifax was driving a rental car which ran off the right side of the road and overturned. He was not injured during the 5 a.m. crash.
The incident is still under investigation by Trooper Gilliam.
Saturday will be a big day in the Town of Clover as the Clover Volunteer Fire Department will stage its annual Fall Festival featuring live entertainment, a kids carnival, drawings for prizes, and plenty of good food all part of the event.
The festival will be held at the Clover Volunteer Fire Department building in Clover and will run from 11 a.m. until the early evening hours.
Saturday's Fall Festival is the Clover Volunteer Fire Department's largest annual fund raising event of the year and the fire department is inviting everyone to join them for the big day.
Activities will start at 11 a.m. with a stew and bake sale. Afternoon activities will be highlighted by a children's carnival and a horse shoe tournament.
Drawings for cash prizes will be held in the afternoon with the drawings being conducted under a unique format.
There will be a drawing for a $200 cash prize that will be based on the exact winning Pick 3 Virginia Lottery numbers that are drawn at 2 p.m. that day. In addition, there will be a second prize drawing for a $100 cash prize which will be based on "Any Order" from the Virginia Lottery's Pick 3 lottery drawing that day.
If for some reason the ticket numbers that are in the fire department drawing do not match the winning Virginia Lottery numbers, there will be a secondary random drawing for cash prizes of $100, $75, and $50.
Live bluegrass music and a "Pig Pickin'" barbecue supper that will be served at 5:30 p.m. will highlight the evening activities.
Tickets for the barbecue dinner are on sale and anyone wishing to purchase tickets for the barbecue dinner may contact Martin at Gregory & Martin Supermarket in Clover or any member of the Clover Volunteer Fire Department.
Persons wishing to obtain tickets for the cash prize drawings should also contact a fire department member.
By Doug Loftis
Some were stretched out on the grass asleep, several others exchanged conversation from a squatted huddle, another stood alone and bopped oddly to a rhythm only he could hear from inside the headphones which covered most of his ears, a few more were returning from Food Lion with snacks they had mostly eaten before crossing the shopping center parking lot.
Wearing mostly black shirts, jackets and jeans that boldly contrasted with their new, white Nike footwear, they might pass as a team. Yea, maybe a Central American soccer team!
A team perhaps and one from Central America but their fields of dreams have been the tobacco fields of Southside Virginia and today, the season is over. Over for an estimated 3,000 who began loading onto Greyhound buses last week at Halifax Square shopping center for the two-day journey to Laredo, Texas and then on to their homes in Mexico.
These are the migrant workers who began arriving in April to help plant, cultivate, and harvest Southside's flue-cured tobacco crop.
As many as half of that total number are still here and probably would have stayed a little longer had it not been for the killing frost that fell Wednesday night.
Next week at this time, few if any of these migrants will be seen on the farms and inside the stores and shops buying the stuff that was piled high in boxes and bags waiting to be loaded into the bus.
Few arrived here with possessions. Most were flat broke after paying their own bus fare. But seven months of averaging 45-50 hours a week at $5.60 an hour -tax free, changed all that.
Even bus fare, both ways, was covered for having fulfilled their work contracts. Many had just left the bank and cashed their checks for as much as six to eight weeks of work.
"I tell you it's frightening,!" Eloise Wilder said as she sat in the back seat of her car shelling butterbeans and waiting for the arrival of another bus that was suppose to have been here more than two hours ago. She serves as executive secretary to the Virginia Agricultural Growers Association which contracts for the hiring of migrants.
Wilder's concern is for the safe return of the migrants who obviously carry a lot of cash not to mention their Sony color televisions, Gateway 2000 computers, and Hitachi stereos which they shoved in quantity into the lower cargo sections of the bus. So great was the quantity that some of the stuff was pushed out of the opposite side as more was shoved in!
"They love electronic products," she said adding," even more than we do."
Most, Wilder said, send some money back to Mexico throughout the season. Others obviously, spend their wages freely. Few are educated, speak little English but are considered "street smart."
As anxious as they are to come here and work, an equal if not greater anxiety filled their faces as they waited to load their stuff and go home.
"They just don't like the cold weather!" she said.