Kelvin Larson; Coachella Valley Grape Grower

Kelvin K. Larson, a former sharecropper who became one of the Coachella Valley’s biggest grape growers, has died in the crash of his single-engine plane in the mountains near Indio.

The Riverside Press-Enterprise reported that Larson, 59, was alone in the family airplane when he took off from Palm Springs Municipal Airport the morning of Jan. 17 en route to Thermal Airport, south of Palm Springs.

A Sheriff’s Department spokesman said Larson had radioed that he was feeling “dizzy” and “it was foggy.” The wreckage of the Cessna 210 was found about mid-day and his wife, Patricia, a Riverside County supervisor, identified the body.

Larson was a 1952 UCLA Law School dropout who sharecropped 120 acres of cotton near Brawley. Within two years he had accumulated enough capital to purchase 40 acres of grape farmland near Thermal. At his death that spread had grown to more than 600 acres.

Larson was best known in California for his opposition to and subsequent lawsuit against Cesar Chavez’ United Farm Workers of America. In 1980 he lost a $6-million libel suit against Chavez and the UFW brought when Chavez, writing in Penthouse magazine, accused Larson of “union busting” and election fraud. The article involved a labor election at Larson’s ranch in 1974 when field workers voted against a UFW contract renewal.

Besides his wife, Larson is survived by six children.