Jeb Rosebrook's adaptation of his teleplay "The Conflict," from a two-hour "Waltons" episode in 1973, is his first attempt at becoming a produced playwright. It is based on true events which occurred in the early years of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term as president. The Blue Ridge Parkway was designed to run from the southern end of Skyline Drive at Rockfish Gap, Virginia, into North Carolina and, in Virginia, was a part of the Shenandoah National Forest. Work was done by the Works Progress Administration, the Emergency Relief Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps.
In the summer of 1952, while the author was employed at the University of Virginia in their Building and Grounds Department, he met a fellow workman who told him the story of how his family became displaced from their Blue Ridge Mountain home in order to make way for the new highway.
This became the foundation storyline of "The Conflict." Rosebrook created a Walton family presided over by matriarch Aunt Martha Corrine Walton. The family is being evicted by the federal government in order for the highway to pass through their land. In an attempt to prevent the government from seizing her land, Martha Corrine and her family appeal to their relatives, John Walton and his family, whose son John Boy is the eldest of their seven children. John Boy becomes the pivotal character unfolding drama in the increasingly dangerous stand-off between the federal government and Aunt Martha Corrine Walton.
Jeb Rosebrook has been a writer and producer in film and television since 1969. He has been nominated for two Writers' Guild of America teleplay writing honors, for "The Conflict" and "The Prince of Central Park." He was also nominated, together with co-writer, the late Theodore Strauss, for "I Will Fight No More Forever," the story of Chief Joseph. His film credits include "Junior Bonner" and "The Black Hole." He is the author of a novel, Saturday, which is also set in Virginia, and numerous non-fiction articles published in Arizona Highways and True West magazines. He is a graduate of Washington & Lee University and presently resides with his wife, Dorothy, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
He is greatly indebted to "The Waltons" creator, Earl Hamner, Jr., for his friendship, mentoring and support, personally and professionally, for over half a century.
