SIKESTON HIGHER-EDUCATION CENTER BRINGS PRIDE

Sikeston can be proud of its new higher-education center, a gleaming new building where 672 people are shaping their futures through learning.

That's more than double the number that enrolled in the fall of 1998, when the facility opened in a renovated bank building. The enrollment is sure to grow even more as Sikeston-area residents realize they can receive a quality post-secondary education without driving more than a few miles from home.

For years, Sikeston's leaders wanted a junior college, but the possibility looked slim.

Instead, Three Rivers Community College, with its main campus in Poplar Bluff, and Southeast Missouri State University, with its main campus in Cape Girardeau, joined to offer classes in the higher education center.

But Sikeston's biggest source of pride should be the way the community joined together to fund the school.

The city overwhelmingly passed a quarter-cent sales tax in April 1999 and will raise $3 million of the building's cost. The state kicked in another $1.5 million.

Sikeston's support of the center demonstrates that its residents care about improving their community through education.