BETA SIGMA PHI STATE CONVENTION HERE THIS WEEKEND

Cape Girardeau will host some 600 members of Beta Sigma Phi this weekend as the sorority holds its statewide convention here.

The convention starts tonight at the Holiday Inn Convention Center and will continue through Sunday, said Carole Calvin of Cape Girardeau. Calvin and Judie Herbst are co-chairing the convention.

The sorority previously held its state convention here in 1985, Calvin said.

"We were Cape's first-ever state convention," she said. "Generally it's usually held in St.. Louis or Kansas City, because they have the accommodations. But some of other towns have grown enough that they can have it, too. But the girls loved it down here. They loved Cape Girardeau. I don't know what we did, but they keep telling us it was the best convention we'd ever had, and here we are again."

Mary Miller, director of the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the sorority, and any other convention-goers, are always welcome in the city.

"We have conventions booked through 1999," Miller said, adding that Cape Girardeau is becoming a more popular site for conventions and meetings of all kinds.

"One of the reasons is the services that the Convention and Visitors Burma can offer, and the fact that we're working very aggressively to draw them in. We're in competition with other communities, and we're out pitching all the time," she said. "We can offer support services, and the local people here are saying, hey, we're proud of our community, come see us."

Miller called the expected attendance of approximately 610 for Beta Sigma Phi a "sizable" group.

Conventions generate dollars for local businesses, she said. "The national average is $120 per day per delegate, and that does not include any dollar rollover," she said. "Those are direct expenditures for food and accommodations."

The Beta Sigma Phi convention, she said, means "large dollars. The advantage of meetings and conventions and tourists for our economy is that they don't put a great demand on our local services. They don't tax our fire department or police services and that sort of thing."

Beta Sigma Phi is a social, service and cultural sorority, has 11 chapters in Cape Girardeau and Jackson. It is not affiliated with the university. There are more than 650 chapters statewide, Calvin said, and the sorority has an international membership of 250,000 in 20 countries.

Attending the convention from the sorority's international office will be the president of the International Council, Walter W. "Bill" Ross III and his wife Marilyn of Kansas City. Bill Ross is the son of the late Walter W. Ross, who organized the first Beta Sigma Phi chapter in Abilene, Kan., in 1931.

The theme for this year's convention will be "Rolling on the River," and "destinations" for members will include New Orleans, Natchez, Memphis and Cape Girardeau, said Marion Miles, a member of the convention steering committee.