CALIFORNIA DREAMIN IN ZALMA

Kerry Kirk stirs the lettuce in the salad bar at the Home Plate Restaurant. The Kirks bought the restaurant in January and believe it will accentuate the motel they are building nearby.

Nobody's sure how many people live in Zalma. Located along sparsely traveled Highway 51 in Bollinger County, between Marble Hill and Arab, Zalma's "city limits" is marked at either end by signs noting the population. One sign says it's 83. The other sign says it's 121.

"And those signs have been saying that since I got here in '87," said Jack Kirk, chuckling. "But I guess it's about 100 people."

So why are Kirk and his wife, Kerry, building a $250,000 motel along the highway, next to the Home Plate Restaurant they recently bought?

"Because there's three funeral homes in Bollinger County and no motel. There's family reunions, graduations and anniversaries and no place for all the visitors to stay. And during deer and turkey season there's a lot of hunters," said Jack Kirk, point blank.

Adds his wife: "A lot of people have told us that when they have things like family reunions, they have to send relatives to Jackson or Cape to stay."

The Kirks say the closest motel is about 18 miles away in Advance in Stoddard County. It has six rooms and not much else. A motel near Puxico, about 20 miles south of Zalma, has been turned into rental apartments, a bed-and-breakfast in Marble Hill has gone out of business and a hotel there rents rooms by the week or month.

The Kirks are building a 10-room unit. The rooms will measure 15-by-20. Some will have two queen-size beds; others will have four twin-beds. It's expected the hunters will favor the latter.

Each room will have a color TV that can receive four stations, telephones, furniture and wall decorations. They'll rent for about $30 a night. The business is expected to open in May.

Before moving to the Zalma area, the Kirks lived in Ventura, Calif., for 21 years. Prior to that they lived in Texas. He was born in east Texas, she's from Santa Barbara, Calif.

In Ventura, Kirk had a construction company with nine employees. Part of his work included being "a roustabout for the oil companies there."

In 1986 he came to Zalma with a friend who wanted to buy 20 acres. Kirk ended up buying 80 acres. Within a short time he bought land from five people, and now owns a 1,000-acre cattle ranch.

Last month he and his wife bought the Home Plate Restaurant, which was built in 1986. They changed the menu -- adding such things as steaks and frog legs -- and renovated the inside.

"We added some glass table tops and new curtains and did some little things to spruce it up," said Kerry Kirk.

There are about 10 employees at the restaurant, and the Kirks say business is great.

"A lot of people drive a lot of miles just to come here and eat," said Jack Kirk, pointing to a salad bar, and to a buffet where wisps of steam roll around fried chicken and dumplings.

"We get people from Illinois. Some come from Cape, Sikeston, Dexter, Jackson. We're thinking about getting a guest book," he said.

Kerry Kirk, nodding in agreement, said, "We get checks from all over."

The Kirks believe their brisk restaurant business will accentuate the motel, and vice versa.

The motel will be L-shaped and built just north of the restaurant. Construction will begin soon -- "We're waiting on getting the deed cleared up," Jack Kirk said. Shipley Construction Co., a local firm, has been contracted for the work.

The parking area will be blacktopped and a 200-foot-deep well, expected to cost between $16,000 and $20,000, will be drilled. The nearby school has expressed interest in buying some of the water, says Kirk, because "the well will be up to par."

There are a lot of state and federal regulations to meet, for example, fire walls have to be built, as does a new septic system. But the county government has not been a hindrance. A merchant's license costs $35 a year.

The Kirks say existing businesses in Zalma are excited about the motel. Across the street from where the motel will be built is a quick-stop convenient store, and a gas station is nearby. There are several other stores in the downtown area, about half a mile north.

Kirk says he might name the motel Kirk's Corner, after a similar enterprise in New Mexico called Cline's Corner.

Cline's Corner, he said, "is in the middle of nowhere, about 90 miles from everywhere -- and always packed."