Franklin ponders future without International Paper

FRANKLIN -- More than any other of the industrial cities and towns that dot Southside Virginia, Franklin is a company town.

Just about everyone and everything in and around the city has a vital connection to the big International Paper mill on the Blackwater River.

Retirees and workers from the mill gather regularly at eateries such as Parker Drug Co. or Fred's restaurant. Along Main Street in downtown, companies such as Southside Gas Service have relied on the mill and its employees for much of their business.

Paper mill money has seeded foundations that built or supported public facilities all over the community. Many buildings carry the Camp name, after the mill's founding family. There's the Paul D. Camp Community College, the Ruth Camp Campbell Memorial Library and the James L. Camp YMCA, among others.

Many of the plant's 1,100 employees are secondand third-generation workers. They mostly live in Franklin -- just across the river from the mill -- or neighboring Isle of Wight and Southampton counties. Some commute from North Carolina, just 10 miles down the road.

"This mill has been good to my family," said Kirk Okleshen, who has worked at the plant for 20 years, just as his parents and grandfather did.

"Unfortunately, I feel like they did let us down."

On Oct. 22, International Paper Co., the Memphis-based papermaking giant that took over the mill when it acquired Union Camp Corp. in 1999, announced that it will close the hulking factory next year. The company blamed the economic recession and overcapacity in the paper-making industry.

Some wonder how the community will survive without its top private employer, if laid-off employees are forced to go elsewhere to find work, leaving other local businesses to wither. In the wake of the announcement, residents have expressed anger and fear. Yet some also hold out hope that the region can recover, just as it did from the flooding during Hurricane Floyd in 1999 that ruined hundreds of businesses in Franklin.

At a community meeting Wednesday at the community college, political leaders urged people to stick with the community.

"It is an opportunity to remake ourselves and be something we have never been," said Franklin Mayor James P. Councill III. "We have always been a paper mill town. Maybe we can be something else, and better, with the same quality people that we have."

Many workers say they don't want to leave, but they have few options locally for work. Some say they are already looking east, toward the Hampton Road area, particularly the shipyards, for work.

"Everybody that has been here has been here all their lives practically," said Benjamin Johnson, a plant employee for 23 years who says he is thinking of going back to school for retraining. "We are a family. If I stay or if I go, that won't change."

"I don't want to go. It's my hometown," Okleshen said. "But I've got to do what's best for my family."

Bo Owens, another employee with 25 years at the plant, said he has no plans to leave but can't rule it out. "All of my family is here," he said. The mill, he said, "has always been the place to work. Where else could I make $26 an hour with nothing else but a high school education?"

Caroll Story, president of the United Steelworkers Local 2-1488, which represents hourly workers at the plant, said the mill has 931 hourly workers. About two-thirds of them are 49 years old or younger. More than 300 are younger than 40.

"An employee who is 49 years old, and with 30 years of service -- unless we can pull a rabbit out of that hat -- will not be able to tap into their pension," he said at the community meeting. "That is why we need the help from the state, and the local and federal government. It is going to be tough."

A task force of state officials arrived in town last week to provide information to employees on job searches and unemployment benefits. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine visited the plant Friday and said state officials would work to prevent it from sitting vacant for long. Officials are seeking answers from International Paper on its plans for the complex, he said.

"We need to have intense dialogue with IP about the future of this facility," he said.

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Everyone agrees that the economic devastation will be severe. Besides putting 1,100 people out of work, the closure will cost Isle of Wight about $5.7 million in tax revenue and the city of Franklin about $1.2 million in revenue sharing. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership estimated that the ripple effects of the plant closing will cause 2,400 other job losses in the region.

The closure has also brought up feelings of nostalgia in Franklin, which grew up and prospered as a true company town. Of the many mill towns across Southside, none is as dependent on a single large employer as Franklin.

Some say Franklin really lost its company years ago, when International Paper Co. took over the mill and relocated many of the former Union Camp managers who lived in the area to Memphis and laid off others.

"When you have got top management in town, it makes a big difference," said Mac Coker, one of a group of retirees and local businessmen who gathered last week for breakfast at Parker Drug Co. on Main Street, within sight of the plant.

"The Camp family had a different way of looking at the community, because they lived here," said Joe Stutts, another retiree from the company who worked as manager of community relations for 30 years.

During the Great Depression, Stutts said, "they [the Camp sawmill] stacked every shelter for miles around with lumber that could not be sold, but they kept people employed." When World War II broke out and there was demand for lumber, "Camp manufacturing had it."

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Sitting at Fred's restaurant during lunch last week, 90-year-old Mitch Rabil, a Franklin resident since 1940, said he has never seen such a sense of loss in the community, not even when floodwaters covered most of downtown. Whatever problems the community faced before, "we always had Union Camp," he said, pointing out the window at the factory towers across the river.

His brother, 92-year-old Fred Rabil, showed no signs of giving up.

"We've survived two fires and a flood," said Rabil, who opened the restaurant in 1945 and at age 92 still comes in to work at the cash register. "Now we have got this. We'll just have to stay and play it out."

Alex Vargo, eating his lunch at Fred's between business appointments, expressed the same fears as many other business owners.

"The impact of the closing will be significant," he said. "Some people are afraid that Franklin will become a one grocery store town, a one pharmacy town, a one burger joint town," he said.

Vargo, who lives in Isle of Wight County, said he and his wife, Jill, moved to the area when his father-in-law sold them a small gas business in Franklin in 1985.

"At first I said, 'Where in the hell is Franklin, Va.?'" said Vargo, originally from Pennsylvania. "But I like it here. It's a little city that has everything. It reminds me of where I grew up in Pennsylvania in a steel mill town. But we know what happened there when the market went south."

Vargo said his business, Southside Gas Service on Main Street, supplies the paper plant with about 400,000 gallons of propane a year. "It's a significant chunk of our business," said Vargo, who is already looking for ways to make up for the loss.

"Many of the employees there are our customers, too," he said. "We'll survive, but we are going to have to watch our budget."

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Some say the change has been long coming, since International Paper has cut jobs at the plant for years, from the 2,600 when it bought the place, and the warning signs were there when the company began shutting down other operations in Virginia.

On Armory Drive, a stretch of big-box retailers and chain restaurants in southwest Franklin, Ace hardware store owner Carlton Cutchin III said his family's business supplied the mill with supplies for three generations. But after International Paper took over, those sales dwindled.

"They weaned me off it," he said. "And that was a good thing. It made me sell other products and go after other customers."

"Everybody has fed off the mill for 100 years," Cutchin said. "We don't know any better, so we are going to have to change."

A few miles outside town in Southampton County, brothers Robert and Jim White said they are already trying to find ways to make up for lost business from the mill. Their trucking company, Lee White Inc., founded by their father in 1956, depends heavily on the plant. They truck 60 to 70 loads of paper for International Paper every week.

"That is just going to cut off" when the plant closes, Robert White said. They also run a truck repair shop whose customers include loggers who supply the mill with timber. "That is going to be hurt, too," he said.

The brothers say they are hoping to pick up business from other paper plants in Virginia and perhaps continue trucking for International Paper from its North Carolina operations.

"We have got an advantage in that we can pull from somewhere else, compared to businesses in Franklin that can't pick up and leave," Robert White said. "Even if we do get business from somewhere else, it's not going to be as convenient as going 5 miles away," he said.

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While the timing of the plant closure is being blamed on the recession, the White brothers expressed the same views as others that the loss is symptomatic of deeper problems in the economy, as manufacturing jobs are lost to overseas competition.

At the community meeting Wednesday, which drew more than 650 people, anger flared over that issue. Several plant employees and local residents wanted to know why a plant that operated efficiently and profitably would be closed when International Paper is making investments in other countries such as Brazil.

"To our politicians, all the way up to the president: Where is this country going?" said Story, the union president. "The manufacturing foundation is what this country was built on, and that foundation is starting to crumble. So we need to be thinking about the future and how we bring that back and how we shore that up."

Political leaders at the meeting said they have demanded answers from International Paper, not just about why the plant is closing, but about the future of the facility itself. Local officials say they want to recruit other companies to use the plant. International Paper has not indicated what it intends to do with the mill, but has said it does not want a competitor to take it over.

Franklin's mayor told local residents at the community meeting that while the mill has been an economic engine for the region, no one fell in love with Franklin because of a paper mill.

"They fell in love with this town because of the people, the character, the lifestyle, the history and the privilege of living here, and on the day of the [closure] announcement, none of that was affected," Councill said.

Many of the city's steadfast residents agree.

"We have a wonderful little city," said Stutts, the Union Camp retiree. "We have taken some blows, but we have recovered. This too shall pass, but it's gonna be tough."

Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or jblackwell@timesdispatch.com.