MEMO

The Small Business Development Center will conduct counseling sessions in three areas this month.

The counselor, Gil Degenhardt, will be available Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce office. The counseling sessions (about one hour) are free. Call 335-3312 for an appointment.

He will conduct sessions at the Sikeston Chamber of Commerce Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Appointments are available by calling 471-2498.

He will hold sessions at the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning office in Perryville Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Appointments are available by calling 547-8357.

Edward D. Jones and Co. investment offices in Cape Girardeau have donated $2,000 each to the Cape Girardeau County Chapter of the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army on behalf of the St. Louis-based financial-services firm.

In total, the company will contribute almost $300,000 to the many communities along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers where it has offices. The firm will also donate $100,000 each to the Red Cross and Salvation Army, and $300,000 for the restoration of the Katy Trail, which spans Missouri.

In addition, the firm's associates volunteered more than 2,500 hours filling sandbags, assembling clean-up teams and providing food to volunteers and victims.

Barbara Mueller, secretary and meeting coordinator for the Missouri Hospital Association in Jefferson City, will be guest speaker at the Girardot Chapter of Professional Secretaries International meeting Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Drury Lodge.

Mueller, president elect of the organization, has worked in numerous secretarial and clerk positions during the past 20 years. She received her certified professional secretaries rating in 1990.

Additional information concerning the meeting is available by contacting Donna Riley, 651-9279, or Betty Sargent, 651-2541.

Ex-employees of the former Superior Electric Co. will hold their annual reunion at Cape County South Park Oct. 2.

Participants will meet about 10:30 a.m. at Shelter 21. They should bring a sack lunch.

Superior Electric Products Corp., a manufacturer of electrical items from 1938 through 1982, provided employment for as many as 800 employees at peak production. It dwindled to about 100 employees in the early 1980s.

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"The Crisis in Health Care" was the topic of Kurt May at the Cape Girardeau Association of Life Underwriters monthly bonus hour last week. Carol Keeler of KZIM Radio was guest speaker at the dinner meeting that followed.

CHICAGO (AP) - Illinois manufacturers will get millions of dollars in tax breaks meant to encourage growth and job-creation under a new state law.

The law - signed Friday by Gov. Jim Edgar - offers three new credits. Two are small and should have little impact on state revenues. They help companies that start youth-training programs and open on-site day-care facilities.

The third cuts the amount of sales taxes manufacturers owe on research and design equipment. That should save manufacturers $264 million in the first five years and $75 million every year afterward.

Illinois has roughly 9,500 manufacturing companies employing about one million people.