By Tabitha Evans Moore
Editor & Publisher

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — Over the past two weeks, an anonymous campaign has emerged in opposition to the proposed Lynchburg Stone quarry on Highway 50 — one that raises a question Moore County residents deserve answered: who is behind it, and what is their interest in stopping it?

The campaign has two visible components. The first is a website, stophwy50quarry.com, built on Squarespace and registered with privacy protection that shields the owner’s identity. The site urges Moore County residents to contact council members opposing the rezoning request and directs them to submit comments ahead of Monday night’s Metro Council meeting.

The second is a postcard mailer — individually stamped rather than bulk-mailed — that arrived in mailboxes across Moore County as recently as this past weekend. The Lynchburg Times confirmed delivery to at least two households, one in the north end of the county and one in the south end, suggesting broad distribution. At current postage rates, a county-wide mailing to Moore County’s roughly 4,000 households would cost nearly $3,000 in stamps alone — before printing, design, and distribution costs. Individually stamped mail, unlike bulk mail, does not require a permit traceable to a registered organization.

The practice has a name: astroturfing. The term refers to a campaign designed to mimic a spontaneous, citizen-led movement while concealing the organized — and often financially motivated — interests behind it. The name is a deliberate play on “grassroots,” the genuine article. Astroturfing is common in state and national politics, but it appears in local government too, often in the form of opposition campaigns against zoning or development proposals where a competitor or outside interest has a financial stake in the outcome. The anonymity is by design — because a campaign that appears to speak for the community carries more weight than one that transparently represents a rival business.

The timing is precise. Scott Fruehauf submitted the preliminary site plan for Lynchburg Stone, LLC to the Metro Planning & Zoning Commission on March 3. The mailers arrived March 14–16, timed directly to Monday night’s Metro Council meeting, where the quarry proposal appears on the agenda.

{Editor’s Note: Lee Adcock Construction, who employs Fruehauf, is an advertising partner of The Lynchburg Times. The Lynchburg Times maintains a strict separation between its advertising relationships and its editorial decisions. This story was reported and published solely on the basis of newsworthiness and public interest.}

The Lynchburg Times attempted to identify the owner of stophwy50quarry.com through a WHOIS domain registry search. The registration is protected by a privacy service, obscuring the registrant’s name, address, and contact information.

What the public record does show is this: at the March 3 Metro Planning & Zoning Commission meeting, one speaker identified himself as Chris White and urged the commission to consider potential long-term environmental effects of quarry operations in Middle Tennessee’s karst landscape. White’s wife owns land in Moore County that a regional quarrying company leases on Buckeye Loop Road. He also sits on the Bedford County Planning Commission. They farm the land around the competing quarry.

Because White appeared on the public record in opposition to the quarry, and because his connection to a competing operation was known, The Times contacted him directly Monday afternoon to ask whether he had any involvement in the anonymous campaign.

White denied it unequivocally. “It’s not me,” he said. “I showed up in person.” He went on to note that the company leasing his wife’s land operates the quarry independently, and that neither he nor his wife would benefit financially from blocking the Lynchburg Stone proposal.

“We’re not going to make a penny more or less based on what that guy does,” White said.

What is clear is this: someone spent thousands of dollars and considerable organizational effort to circulate an anonymous campaign timed precisely to a local government meeting — and took deliberate steps to make that campaign untraceable. Moore County residents who received a postcard urging them to oppose their neighbor’s business application deserve to know whether it came from a concerned citizen, a regional competitor, or something else entirely.

The question remains open.

The Lynchburg Times will continue to cover the Highway 50 quarry proposal as it moves through the approval process.•

About the Lynchburg Times: The Lynchburg Times is Moore County’s locally owned, independent news source. Our reporting is supported by readers, small business partners, and underwriters who believe community journalism matters. If this story was valuable to you, consider becoming a supporter at lynchburgtimes.com.