1999 BUSY FOR BUSINESS COMMUNITY

1. Toni's Flower House is under new ownership. Sharon and Sonny Bodenstein recently purchased the business at 41 S. Sprigg St. The business was founded in 1983.

1. H&R Block has expanded its operations at Jackson. Investments and insurance have been added to the Jackson office's tax and accounting business, and additional space was needed.

2. With the rezoning of 60 acres of property along North High Street, Jackson takes another step toward establishing its own industrial tract in the northern part of town. The Board of Aldermen rezoned 50 acres of city-owned land at 2501 N. High St. from single family residential to heavy industrial and 10 acres of city-owned land at 2504 N. High St. from single family residential to general commercial. The city bought the land about six months ago and followed up with annexation. Mayor Paul Sander appointed a committee composed of members of the Jackson Industrial Development Corporation, the city, the Jackson Chamber of Commerce and Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Executive Director Mitch Robinson to supervise its development.

2. The Cape Girardeau City Council has taken a step toward allowing microbreweries to do business in the city. By a unanimous vote, the council granted preliminary approval to changes in the city's zoning ordinance that would allow such businesses to operate. A final vote is expected Feb. 15. Two Cape Girardeau businessmen, Mark Sprigg and Phil Brinson, are planning to open such an establishment in the Buckner-Ragsdale building on Broadway between Main and Water streets.

2. GREENCASTLE, Ind. Pathfinder Communications Inc. of Elkhart, Ind., announces the sale of the Greencastle BannerGraphic, a 5,800-circulation, six-day daily newspaper, and the Spectrum, a 6,500-circulation companion weekly newspaper, to Concord Publishing House Inc., a subsidiary of Rust Communications Inc. of Cape Girardeau. Randy List, who will become part-owner of the Greencastle newspapers, is being named publisher. Gary Rust, Rust Communications president, and Wally Lage, a former Indiana resident and chief operating officer of Rust Communications, are also investors in the property.

3. Dave McAllister is running the airport restaurant, an endeavor several have attempted but none have been able to make profitable. Since 1993, three private operators plus the city have run the restaurant. None had any success. The last, Ron Woodard, the owner of Woodard's in Jackson, closed up shop after just two months. The restaurant remained shuttered for almost two years before McAllister opened Mac's Smokehouse in November.

5. Dennis Marchi, who has been immersed in community projects since he arrived in Cape Girardeau 14 years ago, is given the prestigious Rush H. Limbaugh Award by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce. Also honored at the chamber's annual dinner-dance are Bootheel Area Rapid Transportation (BART), which receives the Small Business of the Year Award, and Cathy Schlosser, who receives the Go-Getter Award for outstanding work with the chamber's membership committee.

6. Don Gregory, who has been distributing newspapers since 1967, retires from the Southeast Missourian circulation department. Throughout the years, Gregory has helped in the distribution of the Bulletin Journal and News Guardian, Cape Girardeau publications, and the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune and Memphis Commercial Appeal.

8. Missouri's casinos spent millions of dollars in winning voter approval last November of a ballot measure legalizing gambling boats in moats. They did so with the aid of a number of Democratic organizations and firms with close ties to the Democratic Party, campaign finance reports filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission show. Missourians for Fairness and Jobs, the pro-gambling campaign organization, spent $10.3 million to win passage of Amendment 9. In contrast, the anti-gambling group, Show Me The River Inc., spent $320,162.

8. Tom's Barber Shop has opened at Rhodes 101 Travel Center, Interstate 55 at the Airport Exit. Barber Tom Wall is open five days a week and offers haircuts, shaves and shampoos.

8. Wood & Huston Bank has opened a new ATM in the Healing Arts Center at St. Francis Medical Center. The new machine is the fifth area ATM owned by Wood & Huston Bank, 111 S. Broadview.

12. Cape Electrical Supply and Square D Co. have donated a motor control center to Southeast Missouri State University's Manufacturing Technology Resource Center. Engineers from Square D Co. visited the campus last week to program the equipment, valued at more than $35,000. The center involves components that are commonly found in industrial facilities.

15. Occupational Medical Services, LLC, has opened at 60 Doctors Park, Suite 104. Jerry Reppert, an Anna, Ill., businessman, is a partner in the operation. Dr. Anthony Zoffuto is co-owner and medical director at the center. Others involved in the operation include Jim Litzelfelner, general manager, and advanced nurse practitioner Bob Bolan.

15. Pat Patterson Photography Studio has moved to a new site, 2700 Bloomfield Road. The photography studio, owned by Pat and Edna Patterson, opened on Broadway in 1982 and has operated at 124 N. Main for the past 12 years. Patterson opened his first photography business as a part-time business, before establishing his first full-time studio at 821 Broadway in February 1982.

17. Cleanup of PCB-contaminated soil at the Missouri Electric Works site could begin next month and be completed by the end of the year, EPA officials say. It will involve excavation of an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 tons of soil at the site of the former motor and transformer repair business at 824 S. Kingshighway and neighboring commercial properties. Those properties include Cape Carpet and Morrill Construction.

19. More than a third of the retail sales generated in Cape Girardeau County come from people who live outside the county. Cape Girardeau has a good retail base, says Chauncy Buchheit, deputy director of the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning Commission, which covers a seven-county area. In 1998, Cape County retail sales were about $1 billion, says Buchheit. "Of those sales, $370 million came from people outside the county."

21. Rick Boyd's first taste of the Jackson-Cape Girardeau area came as a rival college football player a decade ago. Today Boyd is part of the hometown team. Boyd, who played football at Southwest Baptist University 1989-92, was is the new manager of Jackson Wal-Mart. The move comes in preparation of the opening of the new $3.25 million Wal-Mart super center on Highway 72. Boyd, who most recently managed a large super center in Plano, Ill., hopes the new store will be open by mid- or late-spring.

22. A "silent" opening is planned for the new Buchheit Store in Perryville next week. The new operation is in the former Wal-Mart building, 1011 S. Highway 51. Mike Smith is store manager of the new store.

22. Fabick Brothers, which provides a full line of construction and heavy equipment dozers, backhoes, high-lifts and agriculture equipment, will hold a grand opening at its new facility in Nash Road Industrial Park early next month. The new store, about 10,000 square feet of shop, display space, bays, counter area and parts warehouse, and 2,000 square feet in office space, is at 3033 Nash Road East. The facility also includes outside display space.

25. A leading telecommunications service company has expressed interest in locating a center in Cape Girardeau, if workers can be found to fill more than 250 positions. "The company's primary concern is the labor force," says Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association. "This is a concern of many companies. Unemployment rates across the country are at 25-year lows. And in Cape Girardeau County the unemployment rate has been around 3.2 percent the past few months." But there are still workers out there, according to Robinson. "We have workers to fill the type of jobs offered by the teleservice company."

26. With a $350-million-plus expansion project at the Procter & Gamble Co. plant north of Cape Girardeau still being carried out, the company says it is considering yet another expansion. The Cape Girardeau area is one of a number of sites being considered for additional expansions by P&G, which is headquartered at Cincinnati. Concerns about the current expansion were expressed following a column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Southeast Missourian received a number of calls concerning the column by Jerry Berger, which claimed that P&G was angered by the state's unwillingness to refund overpaid tax money. Berger wrote that P&G was "close to pulling the plug" on a possible new $500 million production plant in Missouri. "The article was both misleading and wrong," says Simon Denegri, a P&G spokesman in Cincinnati.