CAPE GIRARDEAU WAL-MART SUPERCENTER GRAND OPENING SCHEDULED TUESDAY

The doors of the Wal-Mart Supercenter opened over a week ago, and official grand-opening ceremonies will be held at the new facility Tuesday.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned at 8 a.m. Tuesday with local officials and Wal-Mart executives from Bentonville, Ark., participating.

"All Cape Girardeau area residents are invited to join the grand-opening celebration," said Terry Godwin, manager of the store. "Our Supercenter associates are excited about the new store, and we're looking forward to continuing as active members of the Cape Girardeau community."

As part of the Supercenter's commitment to the community, Godwin announced that a $1,000 scholarship will be presented to a high school senior from Cape Girardeau each year. Wal-Mart awarded more than $1.2 million of these scholarships this year throughout its 42-state trade area, Godwin said.

The 168,466-square-foot Supercenter is almost double the space of the Wal-Mart store that was at 210 S. Silver Springs Road. Situated at 3439 William in Cape West Business Park, the new store is open 24 hours a day seven days a week. It offers a wide variety of products.

The Cape Girardeau store is the newest prototype developed by Wal-Mart. It offers something found at no other Wal-Mart store a full-line grocery store complete with meat counter, bakery, produce and frozen foods as well as a full-line Wal-Mart store offering general merchandise.

The grocery market represents about one-third of the store, said Wal-Mart officials.

"The Supercenter stores are a scaled-down version of their giant counterpart, Wal-Mart's Hypermart*USA," said a spokesperson from Wal-Mart at Bentonville.

General merchandise can be found in 36 departments, including housewares, recreational supplies, pet-care supplies, electronic and stereo supplies, health and beauty aids, and family clothing and shoes.

In addition, the local Supercenter includes a garden center, pharmacy, cafe snack bar, vision center, one-hour photo lab, and tire, battery and auto service center.

Another feature of the store is its customer service representative on wheels during the rush periods. That representative, a store employee on roller skates, is available to provide quick customer service.

The Supercenter opens just over a year from the time plans were announced on Jan. 28, 1991, for the store. The store employs about 300 people, about 100 more than were employed at the other store here.

The store is one of 105 Wal-Mart operations in Missouri, and is only the sixth Supercenter. Wal-Mart, which operates in 35 states, opened more than 165 new stores in 1991, and has a total of 1,720 stores. Other divisions of the company include 147 Sam's Clubs and four Hypermart*USAs.

The company reported sales of $43.9 billion for the year ended Jan. 31.