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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 15, 1994                   TAG: 9404150095
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DANVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

SOMEONE BLOWING SMOKE AT EXPENSE OF WAREHOUSE

A tobacco warehouse will open for business as usual this selling season, despite a phony advertisement in a weekly newspaper saying the warehouse would not operate in 1994.

A paid advertisement in the Chatham Star-Tribune on Wednesday came only days before a deadline for farmers to designate where they will sell their tobacco.

``This is a headache I don't have to have,'' said Jim Eggleston, president of Bright Leaf Warehouse Inc. ``Who would benefit from placing an ad like that?''

Somebody placed the ad Monday over the telephone to a Star-Tribune employee, said Tim Davis, editor and general manager of the newspaper. The caller identified himself as Eggleston and insisted the ad run in the Wednesday edition, Davis said.

The employee wasn't suspicious, because Eggleston had placed ads with the newspaper in the past, Davis said.

``The ad was completely erroneous,'' said Zan Womack, publisher of the Star-Tribune. ``We want to be sure everything is done in our power to clear this up.''

The caller also asked that the ad run in the weekly Caswell Messenger in Yanceyville, N.C., also published by Womack, and in the tri-weekly South Boston Gazette-Virginian.

The ad failed to meet the Caswell Messenger's deadline. When the Star-Tribune staff members realized the ad was a hoax, they alerted the Gazette-Virginian to kill the ad.

Today is the deadline for farmers to designate where they will sell their tobacco this fall.

by CNB