MAJOR INVENTIONS ALSO CAME ABOUT DURING CAPE'S EARLY DAYS; ANNUAL SCIENCE FAIR ILLUSTRATES EDUCATIONAL GAINS

The annual spring science fair is scheduled to be held in Cape Girardeau March 31 to April 2. Throughout the area young students in the junior division, grades six through eight, and the senior division, grades 10 through 12, and students in grade nine, as participants in either division, will enter scientific inventions seeking recognition and awards. The students hope their scientific problems will have merit on a larger scale than a classroom invention. This will be the 36th fair.

Over the last 35 years this science fair has brought some unusual, new inventions developed by young students to the attention of the public. Although the science fair attracts wide attention and provides an incentive for students to carry out ideas they visualize in their minds, it has shown the strides education has made during the last two centuries to assist students in the scientific field.

The progress was witnessed in February and early March during the broadcasting of the 11th Winter Olympic Games at Albertville, France. The world watched the performance of the games as they were taking place thousands of miles away, and saw everything as soon as did those in attendance at the games.

Faces were clear, actions and details of the games were clear, although everything was taking place thousands of miles away. The comments were broadcast to various sections of the world in different languages.

This is the first time such a complete and breathtaking event has been given the attention this athletic world extravaganza was accorded. The wonderment of it was that this scientific performance was carefully developed and organized first in the mind of men who from an early age were fascinated with the solution of scientific problems. They were encouraged through education to develop something of world importance.

This is what science fairs try to accomplish. The committee in charge always engages someone in the scientific field who is impressive and has accomplished something outstanding to inspire the students and the audience.

Linda Godwin, a native of Oak Ridge and one of America's astronauts, will be the special guest speaker for the 36th Science Fair, which will be held at the Show Me Center. Lester Leaton in the department of chemistry at Southeast Missouri State University will provide more information about the event.

The fair is particularly interesting to Cape Girardeans during the city's bi-centennial year because, when Louis Lorimier established the settlement in 1793, the area was surrounded by dense forests, large swamps, and bordered on the east by the mighty Mississippi River. Conditions were in a natural state enjoyed by wild animals and birds. The resources for man were land, water and air. From these three elements changes came with the assistance of God, man and his brain.

Today Cape Girardeau is a beautiful and an interesting city. The changes, many of them developed through science, have occurred in the last 200 years.

During anniversary years, improvements are always given unusual attention. When Louis Lorimier established the village, he wanted it to be outstanding and on a par with the other four districts, and, if possible, more progressive. The first improvement was the addition of a grist mill on the waterfront. There corn and other grains were processed that were grown by the villagers. The improvements in the Cape Girardeau District for many years were powered by manual labor, water or horse power.

But across the Atlantic, in France, a Frenchman named Claude Chappe was discovering something new in the scientific field that would soon change how things would be powered throughout the world. He discovered the power of electricity could be confined and channeled into doing things to assist mankind. He discovered electricity in a wire could move things, send signals and give power to whatever it touched.

The year he discovered the power of electricity was 1794, and it corresponded with the first years of Louis Lorimier's settlement in Southeast Missouri, where things were in a primitive state.

In the eastern United States Samuel Morse was intrigued with Chappe's discovery and began experiments on his own. His findings were even more surprising, and by September 1837, he could send messages and codes over a wire.

He applied for a patent, but the government hesitated and it was not granted to Morse until 1844. Morse knew electricity would change things, especially sending messages. On May 24, 1844, he sent a message from the U.S. Supreme Court Room in Washington to Baltimore, "What hath God Wrought?" The telegraph was born and Morse was granted a patent.

In the meantime Cape Girardeau was growing. The first boat powered by steam passed the city in 1817. It went five miles an hour. A keel boat could do 10 miles an hour.

By 1850 a telegraph line was extended across the Mississippi, from the eastern United States to St. Louis, and southward, passing through Cape Girardeau and following the river to New Orleans. Later, poles on high hills, like Telegraph Hill on Highway 61 south of Old Appleton, had telegraph lines, but high winds tore lines and the connections were transferred back to the river and wharf boat stations such as Capt. Filburn's at the foot of Themis Street hill.

The telegraph line in 1850 at Cape Girardeau, and the company formed to promote it, was the first scientific invention using electricity to change Lorimier's city. There would be others and they would continue.

Students realized Benjamin Franklin's story about the kite, and the bolt of lightening was more than a textbook store. It introduced a new field of science that was fascinating and with an unlimited future.