QUESTION: Why engage in a land partnership?
ANSWER:
“The land partnership, specially the 200 acres, was supposed to be Larsen’s contribution to the group effort, in return for all the work that Titus had done on hardware and I had done on software. Larsen would manage it at no charge, and would get good land deals.”
. . . . Peter Rony to his attorney, April 5, 1980
As of March 1980, it was not clear to my attorney what transactions had occurred involving the Larsen-Rony-Titus-Titus (LRT&T) land partnership. On March 19, 1980, my attorney sent a letter to David Larsen indicating our desire to visit the principle place of business of the partnership, namely, David’s home.
On May 16, 1980, my attorney filed a Bill of Complaint in Floyd County, VA, in order to legally determine whether or not the land partnership owned two properties, namely, the Bullington property and the Puffenberger Farm property, rather than the Bullington Property alone.
David Larsen was never forthcoming with an annual accounting of transactions that involved the land partnership. Years later, in 2009, I conclude that he was a lousy managing partner, one who could not be trusted.
Further, since David Larsen did not know how to write books, and contributed no writing to Bugbooks I, II, IIA, III, V, VI, plus several of the Blacksburg Continuing Education Series books, his role as a land-managment partner in his mind served in exchange for the receipt of co-author status, co-copyright-holder status, and book royalties. I conclude that J. Titus, C. Titus, and I were all suckers to engage in such an exchange. Observe in his “Bug Book History”, the museum curator is still trying to sell Floyd County land. Such selling may be the reason why the curator created the web site.
On April 9, 2009, I paged through my 3-hole folder on the land partnership and discovered a copy of an October 11, 1977 letter from Jon Titus of Tychon, Inc. to Larsen, Rony, Chris Titus, and Jon Titus about the 222-acre Puffenberger Farm that was purchased from Laurel Creek Farms, Ltd. Who was the owner of Laurel Creek Farms, Ltd? David Larsen.
PDF copies of several documents, including
- the Bill of Complaint
- Cover letter for Bill of Complaint (May 16, 1980)
- Request to inspect Land Partnership books of account (March 19, 1980)
- Tychon purchase of Puffenberger Farm from David Larsen (October 11, 1977)
are available as in the Tidbit "Download PDF files".