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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 24, 1995                   TAG: 9505240096
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RURAL RETREAT                                LENGTH: Short

FARMER HARASSED OVER PRISON

A Wythe County farmer says he had to unplug his telephone to stop verbal abuse and harassment from callers who mistakenly thought he was providing a site for a proposed private prison.

A local newspaper had speculated that Corrections Corporation of America, which canceled its original option on a tract two miles east of Wytheville as a site for a 1,500-bed prison, might have obtained an option on Don Heldreth's farm near Rural Retreat.

CCA's second option actually was secured from land-auction businessman Stanley King on the former Bowling Green farm just north of Wytheville. But people started calling Heldreth and members of his family before they saw the correct report.

"These threatening calls that we've had, they were terrible. You can't imagine what they told us on the phone, my family and my son's family," said Heldreth, a former member of the county Board of Supervisors.

"I can't believe we've got people like that around here. I've been here 62 years, and this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my life."

As for any potential deal with CCA, he said, "I never even gave it any thought. That's the last thing I'm going to do is sell my farm, for any purpose."

by CNB