CARNAHAN HELPS BREAK GROUND FOR SEMO BUSINESS BUILDING

Gov. Mel Carnahan and Southeast Missouri State University officials turned shovels of dirt Tuesday at a groundbreaking ceremony for the school's business building.

University Regent Don Dickerson likened the project to a "Field of Dreams," a reference to the movie that revolves around the building of a baseball diamond in an Iowa cornfield.

"We stand on a field of dreams for those folks here," Dickerson told a crowd of several hundred area dignitaries, university staff and students who turned out to celebrate the start of construction of the College of Business building.

Dickerson said the building, to open in August 1996, will serve as a "springboard for economic development in a state that really needs it."

Carnahan and university officials delivered remarks in a ceremony held under a large tent at the construction site at the corner of Henderson and New Madrid streets.

School officials praised the governor, legislative leaders and voters for securing the state funding needed to construct the two-wing, 100,000-square-foot building.

State Sen. Peter Kinder and state Rep. Mary Kasten, both of Cape Girardeau, and state Sen. Jerry Howard of Dexter attended the ceremony.

"We've waited a long time for this morning," university President Kala Stroup said. "It's been a wonderful roller-coaster ride, but we want it to stop," she said, referring to the decade-long effort to secure state funding.

Carnahan, whose father graduated from Southeast, congratulated the school's supporters for their efforts to make the business building project a reality. He said the project is "another historic step" for the university.

The $15 million project will be funded with $12.3 million in state bond money and more than $2.4 million in private funds. The building will bring the entire business college under one roof.

It will be named the Robert A. Dempster Hall in honor of the Sikeston lawyer, who helped set up the university's fund-raising foundation and gave $1 million to the project.

Dempster, who has suffered a number of strokes, couldn't attend the ceremony.

Dempster and his wife, Lynn, who is one of the university's regents, have been major contributors to the university for years.

Lynn Dempster lamented that her husband couldn't attend the ceremony. "Since Jan. 15 I have had to do some difficult things because my husband became an invalid then," she said.

The business building is about more than money; it is an investment in education, she said. "It is about making possible an educational dream."

Dempster said her husband financially had helped convert a luxury apartment building into Southeast's first College of Business building and transformed an abandoned gymnasium into a campus auditorium.

Gerald McDougall, dean of the business college, praised Carnahan's role in the business building project.

The governor led the successful effort to secure voter approval of a $250 million bond issue to fund prison and higher-education projects," he said.

"No one should ever ignore the bottom line," McDougall said. "No one is more important in the political process than Gov. Mel Carnahan."