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

DATE: SATURDAY, August 5, 1995                   TAG: 9508070023
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROANOKE                                 LENGTH: Long

WITH HIS ORGANIC FARM ON HOLD, ENTREPRENEUR PLANS RV PARK

Clifford R. "Charlie" Brown and his family came to Giles County from Florida in 1990 with plans to create an organic farm on 2,000 acres formerly known as the Shumate Farms in Glen Lyn.

But a few months later, a dispute erupted between Brown and the Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the Bluestone Dam Project just over the Giles County border in West Virginia.

That dispute, along with an economic slump in 1991-92, vandals and disgruntled hunters who thought they'd no longer be allowed on the property put the organic farm plans on hold.

Five years later, Charlie Brown has tried to put behind him a federal conviction that carried probation and fines, the 31/2 years his son was on the run from federal authorities, and a civil suit where he won the right to temporarily close an abandoned road on his property for maintenance purposes as long as he didn't interfere with public access.

Brown's son turned himself in last week after 31/2 years as a fugitive from charges of assaulting federal officers and building gate posts on federal property.

Charlie Brown's dream of the organic farm still looms, but first ...

First, the Brown family is launching an RV park.

The centerpiece of the wilderness resort - which will be in the West Virginia portion of the sprawling estate - will be a 14,500-square-foot lodge. Brown envisions attracting "city slickers" who want to enjoy the outdoors, go 'coon hunting and maybe even see a real moonshine still up close - if he can get a permit from federal authorities to showcase the apparatus. He plans a 1900s motif, with barn dances and barbecues.

With parking sites for 50 of the huge recreation vehicles in the expansive property, Brown said it would not be like going to a typical commercial campground where "your awnings [are] rubbing the next site," Brown said. Instead, campers will feel they have "stepped out into the wilderness," Brown said.

"We'll be advertising nationally in all the RV magazines," he said. The family hopes to open the campground in the next month or "at least by the change of the leaves."

"We'll still do the organic farm," he said, when it becomes more profitable to do so. The economic slump of 1991-92 slowed the vision of starting the organic farm. Brown said organic produce costs 25 percent more than regular produce because of higher production costs.

Clifford L. Brown, 33, had pleaded guilty - along with his father, - to the charges in July 1991. The father showed for sentencing in January 1992, but the son did not.

He hadn't been heard from until last week, when he turned himself in to federal authorities, said Joe Mott, an assistant U.S. attorney. He was arrested on a bench warrant charging him with violating conditions of his bond.

"They kept chasing him through his girlfriend," Charlie Brown said of his son Thursday. The girlfriend worked for a military contractor and her security clearance was threatened because of her association with him, Brown said. So he turned himself in.

Clifford L. Brown was in U.S. District Court briefly Tuesday, where a magistrate judge ruled Brown should be held without bond pending sentencing. Mott said the sentencing will likely be in October, after a new presentence report is prepared that might include additional recommended time to serve.

Mott said an additional charge of failing to appear is being investigated.

Charlie Brown was sentenced to three years' probation and fined $10,000.

The charges stemmed from an October 1990 incident involving four Army Corps of Engineers employees and a dispute over whether gate posts the Browns had installed were on the Browns' or federal property.

Authorities said the Browns had erected the posts near a road that the Browns and the corps shared. The government charges that when corps employees attempted to take the posts down, the Browns drove up in their pickup and ordered them to leave. The employees said they were threatened with a tear-gas grenade. They also spotted a shotgun in the truck.

Charlie Brown told U.S. District Judge James Turk that he put the gate posts in with the intention of adding gates after two lawyers told him he would be liable for accidents on the road. Brown said he thought the corps would need a court order to remove the posts.

His son faces punishment for the same charges, plus a charge of unlawfully possessing a firearm after a previous felony conviction in Florida. A corps employee testified that Clifford Brown grabbed the throttle of a backhoe one of the corps employees was on and threatened the four employees.

The employee said Charlie Brown pulled a tear-gas canister from under his coat, threatening to throw it under the backhoe.

No one was hurt and both sides went to call law enforcement officials. Charlie Brown said he had guns in the truck - in plain view - because he thought someone was tampering with his equipment.

Things are calm over at the farm now, Brown said in an interview from his Florida health-food distribution headquarters. The hunters know they can hunt if they get permission first, people can come for picnics alongside the river, and the road argument is settled.

"Everybody kind of adapted in to each other ..." Brown said. "We were never wanting to deny people access to the river. We were just wanting to get the roads squared away."