STRICTLY BUSINESS: FURNITURE DOCTOR MAKES HOUSE CALLS

Pat Young makes house calls.

He's not a doctor, doesn't take care of broken limbs, cuts and scrapes, or any other ailments of humans. He can take care of broken chairs, tables with scratches and nicks, recliners with broken mechanisms and other furniture ailments.

Young is a "Furniture Medic."

"I've been involved in the furniture industry since high school," said Young, a native of Cape Girardeau. "My family is involved in a furniture (Patrick's Furniture Mart) store."

Young thinks Furniture Medic allows him to continue and expand his interest in the furniture industry while fulfilling a need in the Southeast Missouri marketplace.

Young provides the newest location of Furniture Medic, a company that has pioneered an "on-site" method of furniture restoration and repair.

"The mobile operation will serve both the business and residential communities of Southeast Missouri," said Young. "This is a new concept in furniture restoration and repair. We'll repair furniture in the customer's home or place of business."

Services include repair of scratches, cigarette burns, finish imperfections, water marks, broken joints and other types of damages. A new state-of-the-art technique permits stripping of furniture, kitchen cabinets and other wood applications on site in a fraction of the time usually needed, said Young.

"There is no need to load and unload heavy furniture and risk more damage driving it to the repair shop," noted Young. "And because the majority of repairs are made on-site, customers don't have to be without their furniture for weeks."

There are some exceptions, pointed out Young. "Once in a while, we will have to take the furniture in."

Young recently completed an extensive training program -- the first in the industry -- at Furniture Medic's world headquarters in Atlanta. The training program focused on the latest technological advances in furniture repair, including those developed by Furniture Medic.

Furniture Medic was founded three years ago, and has expanded to more than 450 sites in the United States, Canada, France and Brazil.

Young became acquainted with the company and its services through Internet.

"It's a really growing company," said Young. Furniture Medic also owns Floorcovering International, Surface Doctor and Professional Carpeting Systems.

New riverboat casino

Harrah's Entertainment Inc. is floating another riverboat casino in North Kansas City.

The Memphis, Tenn.-based gambling corporation will provide the state's newest and largest gaming vessel, which was approved last week by the Missouri Gaming Commission.

The Lucky Star, with more than 30,500 square feet of gaming space on one floor, features a 44-foot-high atrium courtyard.

The Lucky Star, which began operations last week, is the second boat at the site for Harrah's, which opened its North Star operation in that area in 1994. Harrah's added more than 450 new workers, for a total employment in North Kansas City of more than 2,200.

Jay Sevigny, Harrah's general manager, said the casino decor features a New Orleans and Bourbon Street flair.

Harrah's will stagger its two-hour "boarding times" with gaming session starting every hour on either the Lucky Star or the North Star. Given each boat's 45-minute window for boarding, gamblers will have to wait no more than 15 minutes to enter one or the other boat.

Harrah's also operates two riverboat casinos -- the Northern Star and the Southern Star -- in the Des Plaines River at Joliet, Ill., and is building a two-boat operation in the St. Louis area, in the Maryland Heights area.

The Maryland Heights casino project is the largest in the state. The $270 million project is a joint venture between Harrah's and Players International Inc. and will include four casinos, each with 22,500 square feet. The complex is designed to have separate boarding times, thus virtually eliminating delays in entering the casinos.

All the non-gaming facilities will be jointly owned, but each company will own and manage its casinos. Total employment at the project will be 3,200. Harrah's, which will manage the hotel, will employ 2,000 and Players will employ 1,200.

Harrah's also operates Harrah's Casino along the Mississippi River at Tunica, Miss., and is in the process of opening a second casino there.

Gigantic cropland sale

The sale of more than 15,000 acres of prime Bootheel farmland, will take place in July during one of the largest cropland auctions ever held in the area.

Some 15,295 acres, in 64 tracts, owned by E.B. Gee Jr., of Blytheville, Ark., will be sold in what is called a "Freedom Tract" auction.

"This is one of the largest farmland auction in America's history," said Jean L. Merry, communications manager of Capital Agriculture Property Services Inc., (CAPS) headquartered at Lisle, Ill.

The last time this much cropland in the Heartland changed hands was when Thomas Jefferson purchased 828,000 square miles from the French for the sum of $15 million.

The tract of land for this auction, according to CAPS, and Curran Miller Auction/Realty Inc., of Evansville, Ind., comprise three large farms -- the Dunklin County Farm in Dunklin County, and the Henderson Mound Farm and Marston Farm in New Madrid County.

The auction will take piece July 10 and 11 at the American Legion building in Kennett, with the sale of the 33 tracts of the Henderson Farm the first day. The 14 tracts of the Marston Farm will be sold July 11 at 10 a.m., with the 17 tracts of the Dunklin County Farm at 2 p.m.

Most of the tracts, say the real estate companies, are suited for corn, cotton, rice, soybeans, wheat and milo, with some timber on others.

The "Freedom Tract" concept means that bidders can bid on any combination of parcels they desire, as opposed to the properties being offered in parcels and then as a whole. All bids remain open until the end of the auction, allowing any bidder to raise the offer on any tract, combination of tracts or all of the tracts.