BIOKYOWA MARKS 15TH ANNIVERSARY HERE

Oct. 1 saw a happy anniversary dinner for one of Cape Girardeau's best-known business success stories. That would be Biokyowa, the Japanese-based animal-protein producer that chose to locate here in the fall of 1982. The company's dinner at the Holiday Inn Convention Center was a lavish affair, attended by all company employees and their families, together with dozens of local guests and out-of-town company suppliers.

Biokyowa, which employs approximately 100 people at its plant on Nash Road, has long been a first-rate corporate citizen in our community. The latest example is a generous donation of $25,000 to the Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School. This represents a major investment in our educational resources and in the training and equipping of our future work force. Biokyowa's donation is joined to many others for the new vo-tech school that have now, according to school superintendent Dan Tallent, reached into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. All this is a major vote of confidence in our community.

Biokyowa's decision to locate here was the result of a trade mission to the Far East undertaken by then-Gov. Christopher Bond back in 1981. Among those along on that consequential journey was longtime Cape Chamber of Commerce executive Bob Hendrix, who followed through with all the legwork necessary to securing this major industry for Cape Girardeau. It was the first major Japanese industrial concern to locate in Missouri and has since been followed by dozens more representing hundreds of millions of dollars.

We join a grateful community in congratulating the good people of Biokyowa and wish them many more prosperous years in our midst.