The Virginian-Pilot
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, September 14, 1996          TAG: 9609140289
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: RALEIGH                           LENGTH:   34 lines

STORM AID WENT TO CURE TOBACCO GENERATORS WEREN'T DISTRIBUTED BASED ON POLITICS, HUNT SAYS.

While officials scrambled to get generators for nursing homes and hospitals in the wake of Hurricane Fran, one National Guard generator was being used to cure tobacco for a supporter of Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.

Republicans cried foul and questioned whether Hunt, a Democrat seeking re-election, had played political favoritism during a crisis.

Not so, Hunt officials said.

``The bottom line on this is there has been absolutely no political motivation to handing out generators,'' said Richard Moore, secretary of crime control and public safety.

But he acknowledged that some generators went to tobacco farmers.

Republican Rep. Billy Creech of Johnston County said he was furious after seeing two uniformed National Guardsmen operating a generator at the Johnston County farm of Democratic state Senate candidate Allen Wellons, a Smithfield lawyer and farmer.

``If there's human needs out there, you don't cure damn tobacco with it, not with the state's generator,'' he said.

``We had old people sitting in nursing homes hot as hell, and they didn't need to be sitting in 90-degree heat,'' said Creech, whose wife works for a local council on aging.

Hunt, a lawyer-farmer from the neighboring county of Wilson, said he used no political influence to help Wellons.

``I understand they (the state) filled all the requests for human services they got,'' Hunt said. by CNB