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

DATE: FRIDAY, May 20, 1994                   TAG: 9405230116
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DANVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

CHATHAM SENATOR WOULD LIKE TO LURE DISNEY TOURISTS SOUTH

A Southside senator is trying to form a regional tourism initiative because he believes tourists can be lured south on U.S. 29 after visiting Disney's America theme park planned for Northern Virginia.

"We have a lot of things people would like to see and we cannot wait for it to happen," said state Sen. Charles Hawkins, R-Chatham.

Hawkins has invited lawmakers, local government leaders, and state tourism and historic preservation officials to a meeting Monday in Altavista to begin forming the regional tourism initiative.

"For years I have realized that we as a community don't work together as we should," Hawkins said Wednesday.

U.S. 29 passes by the proposed Disney park and runs through Culpeper, Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Chatham and Danville.

The state already is spending millions of dollars on road improvements along U.S. 29. As that construction progresses, Hawkins said, "it's time to look at a regional approach, and tourism could be the thing that ties it all together."

Hawkins said he believes the region boasts numerous attractions for people in North Carolina and Virginia longing to take a one-day or overnight trip.

These attractions include historic mansions in Danville and the largest tobacco auction system, "which is a curiosity and a tourist attraction," he said.

There is much to attract people to Pittsylvania County, Hawkins added, including the Callands courthouse complex and a winery at Tomahawk Mill.

Further north, there is Smith Mountain Lake and, closer to Lynchburg, Patrick Henry's burial place at Red Hill in Brookneal, Jefferson's summer home of Poplar Forest in Bedford County and Civil War exhibitions at Appomattox.

"We have to try to work out some sort of method to sell us as a region," Hawkins said, particularly with renewed interest among tourists about the Civil War.

Drawing more tourists to the region ultimately will mean more money for schools and local governments, Hawkins said.

But efforts at boosting tourism are not as easy as they seem.

In 1989, when he was serving in the House of Delegates, Hawkins won approval for a visitors center along the Virginia-North Carolina border on U.S. 29.

But the center never was built. A similar center was built elsewhere but never opened because of high costs.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB