BOOTHEEL CENTER FUND RAISING GETS TOP MARKS

MALDEN -- If raising funds were a college course, the advisory council of the Harry L. Crisp Bootheel Education Center would make straight A's.

The council of 15 area residents has seen contributions grow dramatically since its first fund-raising effort in 1991.

The advisory council has raised nearly $400,000 for capital improvements this year, with half of that a matching contribution from Southeast Missouri State University.

Nearly $200,000 has been raised from among 300 to 400 Bootheel residents, most of them from the Malden area.

Many benefactors have contributed annually to the center, which offers college courses and other educational training.

The council raised $30,000 in 1991, $46,000 in 1992, $75,000 in 1993 and $87,000 last year.

"It's phenomenal. It really is," council Chairman Pat Morehead of Malden said.

One woman is giving a $50,000 endowment this year. Entire families have contributed money over the years for classrooms.

Country singer Tammy Wynette has donated to the center.

"The city of Malden gave us $50,000 for a new science wing two years ago," Morehead said.

Advisory council members are among the center's biggest benefactors. Local businesses also have been big backers.

The amount of money raised in this year's campaign officially will be announced at tonight's annual dinner. Former secretary of state Roy Blunt will speak at the $100-a-plate dinner. Blunt is president of Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar.

About 300 people are expected to attend the dinner. It will be held in an unused section of the center that soon will be renovated to provide space for a meeting room, a suite of offices and a student lounge.

"The exterior walls are there. We are just adding interior walls," center Director Robert Ritschel said.

Malden's Bootheel Education Center is housed in a sprawling former Pepsi-Cola bottling plant. The planned renovations will encompass 4,320 square feet of space.

Morehead said the center's 14 classrooms aren't visible from the outside.

"We are building within a building," she said. "There are no windows so nobody can look in."

Ritschel said work on the project should begin this summer and should be completed within six months.

The improvements will provide space to house business seminars for as many as 75 people.

The suite of offices will be used for government-funded education and jobs programs.

For the more than 5,000 residents of the Dunklin County town, the center has become a source of pride, Morehead said.

"Anybody here now has access to the best education," she said.

At a Glance

The center at Malden opened in 1988 in a former bottling plant.

Current enrollment: 500 students a semester, with most of them coming from Dunklin, New Madrid and Stoddard counties. Some students come from as far away as Arkansas.

Southeast Missouri State University operates the center as part of a consortium involving Three Rivers Community College at Poplar Bluff, the University of Missouri Extension and four vocational-technical schools.

The center has a staff of five full-time and two part-time employees.

Most of the college courses are taught by faculty from Three Rivers.