ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 14, 1991                   TAG: 9102140182
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ROCKY MOUNT PLANT TO MAKE WAR PANTS

Virginia Apparel Corp. of Rocky Mount said Wednesday it has won an $8 million contract to make camouflage trousers for U.S. soldiers in Operation Desert Storm. The order, for 429,000 pairs of nylon pants, means the company will hire employees and keep open a plant in Blackstone whose future had been uncertain.

The military contract, awarded Friday, is the largest in the company's history, said Russ Merritt of Franklin County Chamber of Commerce. It calls for shipments beginning June 1.

The Rocky Mount company won about 30 percent of the total military contract for 1.4 million pairs of pants. Wrangler Corp. of Greensboro, a subsidiary of VF Corp., received an earlier contract for camouflage pants in October.

Virginia Apparel has not decided how many new employees will be needed for the work, Merritt said. The Rocky Mount plant has a work force of about 200 people who make sportswear - shorts, long pants and skirts - mainly for the catalog houses of J. Crew Outfitters and L.L. Bean. - Staff report 


 by CNB