Weekday
The weekly feature page of the University Daily Kansan January 30,1979
Ravlin L. Mautello, Holt, Mo., looks over some of the stacks of tobacco in the Weston Burley warehouse. The stacks of tobacco weigh as much as 700 lbs and bring $1,000 when they are sold.
WESTON, Mo.—Nestled in the foothills of the Missouri River, just a few miles northeast of Leavenworth, Weston is the only city in Weston on a bitter-cold January morning is found at the south end of Main Street, in Weston
Inside the warehouse, a dozen or so overall-clad men are gathered in a tiny, heated office to escape the early morning heat, which hovers around the zero mark.
Before long, two well-dressed men in their 40's begin to strut down the stacks of burley tobacco that are dined up in long rows the length of the dim building. The two men draw the sticks from a bag and start the start of the morning's transactions.
The Weston Burley House, which employs about 100 people, and a distillery are the two main industries in the 1,300-population town.
The tobacco leaves are wrapped together in bundles called "hands" and are placed in shallow wooden baskets, each stack a different grade of tobacco. The size of the stack depends on how much humidity the tobacco the grower brings into the warehouse.
The stacks, which may weigh as much as 700 pounds each, are built in layers as the tobacco comes in from the growers.
The two men are officials from the United States Department of Agriculture and they are at the Weston laboratory to grade of tobacco in each of the stacks.
The business conducted in the warehouse is the wholesale auction of tobacco, grown in four northwestern Missouri counties. Weston is the only tobacco market west of the Mississippi River.
Each grade is a classification based on what part of the plant the sample is from, its quality and its color. The USDA lists 101 grades.
Pepper said the federal government spent $22 million last year to finance its anti-smoking program, while at the same time it supervised the price support system for the tobacco growers.
According to Jimmy Pepper, one of Western Burley's three owners, tobacco sales at the market totaled about $700 million, or percent of all U.S. burley sales in 1978.
Story by Mark L.Olson
PRIDE IN TOBACCO
"It has not cost the federal government one penny for the money they have loaned to support tobacco prices," Pepper said.
"It is not designed to benefit the federal government," he added, "but it has never hurt them."
According to figures provided by the BTGCA, the cooperative pay $119.4 million in interest to the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). The money loaned by the CCC goes to the support unit to stabilize wholesale tobacco prices.
For the tiny town of Weston, the revenues from the Weston Burley House are an important part of its own economy.
And four mornings a week, from the middle of November to the first week in February, bidders from six major tobacco companies and a handful of small domestic firms take part in the lightning-fast auctions.
The warehouse returned more than $80,000 in payroll, interest and insurance money to the community last year, according to Pepper.
To the untrained ear, the rapid-fire call for bids by auctioneer Burton Hunt is unlucky. In less than five dollars he will sell an entire row of tobacco.
After the auction, three boys sat in the basement lounge of the warehouse. Two of them were launching juice from the chaws in their cheeks towards a cardboard box in the middle of the room.
in the Westbury House basement,
900 lb. barrels of tobacco are stored to await shipment by truck or railroad to a processor. The tobacco may later be processed into cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco or snuff.
Photos by Trish Lewis
One of the expectatorats, a 12-year-old, sat on the ragged, dusty couch with a roll of money in his pockets.
The money, he said, was from his first sale, an acre-and-half crop of tobacco, which he raised with the help of the two boys sitting with him.
The grin of tobacco-stained teeth that broke across his face when he pulled the money from his pocket left no doubt. He looked up and noticed it. It had brought him $2000 in cash.
The coarse motif is a stack of tobacco ready for sale. When the tobacco is harvested the leaves are tied together in bundles of four by wrapping a moist leaf around the ends of the stem. When the leaves are cut, the leaves are twisted the bundles, called "hands" to be handled without falling apart.