ASHCROFT, DAVY JONES TO PERFORM

Davy Jones is the more famous singer, but try making a Monkee of U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft.

Both Ashcroft and Jones, a member of the TV show band The Monkees, are scheduled to sing at separate events in Cape Girardeau in the coming weeks.

Ashcroft, the baritone member of the Singing Senators, will sing solo Aug. 19 in a benefit for Southeast Hospice. Jones will provide the entertainment Sept. 23 at the Southeast Missouri State University Family Weekend concert at Houck Stadium. The concert will follow the Southeast football game against Western Kentucky University.

Ashcroft will be among the performers at "Made in the USA," the fourth annual Southeast Hospice Music Festival Aug. 18 and 19 at the A.C. Brase Arena Building.

The fund raiser for Southeast Hospice will present Motown, jazz, country, folk, Celtic, gospel and Broadway show tunes. Hosts will be Cindie Jeter of KZIM radio and Brian Alworth of KFVS-12.

Carol Keppler, volunteer coordinator for Southeast Hospice, credited Jeter with helping land Ashcroft.

"We'd been trying to get him all year," Keppler said. "We tried to get the Singing Senators."

The Singing Senators consist of Ashcroft, Majority Leader Trent Lott, and Sens. Larry Craig of Idaho and James Jeffords of Vermont. All Republicans, they have performed at numerous GOP fund raisers and with the Oak Ridge Boys in Branson, Mo.

Keppler said a Republican rally is scheduled here that weekend.

On Aug. 19, Ashcroft is expected to perform a duet on at least one song with teen-age fiddle phenom Liesl Schoenberger and will be accompanied by guitarist Kelly Simms.

Ashcroft singing "America" is a sure thing, Keppler said.

The Contors, a Motown band that includes Cape Girardeau musicians Chuck McGinty and Tom Mogelnicki, will perform at "Made in the USA" beginning at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 18. Admission is $7.

The Aug. 19 entertainment will begin at 11:15 a.m. with the Rivers of Joy gospel singers, followed by the Men of Westminster singing gospel and barbershop at noon. Betty Fadler will sing show tunes at 12:45 p.m., with the Celtic group Children of Lir performing at 1:30 p.m. The Shade Tree Folk Company will perform at 2:15 p.m., followed by Schoenberger at 3 p.m. and Ashcroft at 3:30 p.m.

Admission during the day is free.

Pianist Dr. Richard Moore and friends will present "An Evening of Jazz" beginning at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the performance are $7.

Jones follows the Beach Boys in 1999, the Temptations in 1998, and the Village People in 1997 as the featured performer at the Southeast Family Weekend concert, an event that tries to please the musical tastes of college students and their parents.

"We look at performers who cross generational lines," says Diane Sides, Family Weekend coordinator.

She said the students who helped choose this year's performer didn't necessarily know who Davy Jones was, "but they knew of the Monkees, and a lot of their moms know who Davy Jones is."

Jones was the heartthrob member of the made-for-TV band that later went on to perform concerts.

The Monkees no longer perform together as a group, but Peter Tork also has a solo singing career.

Family Weekend is scheduled 4-8 weeks after the beginning of the semester.

"This is just about enough time for students to have started to really adapt to university life and to have created a new environment for themselves," Sides said. "So when their families come they can really introduce their families to what it's like for them."

Sides said, "It's also about the time the student has become the most homesick."