Colorful events in works for opening of bridge

The public will get a chance to celebrate the scheduled opening of the new Mississippi River bridge at a variety of festivities this fall including a beauty pageant and a photography contest.

Civic leaders and Missouri Department of Transportation officials plan to hold a dedication kickoff Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. to announce a series of events to celebrate the new Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge. The event will be held on the new street approach to the bridge in Cape Girardeau.

If it rains, organizers said, the kickoff will be held at the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau at Main Street and Broadway.

Scott Meyer, MoDOT district engineer in Sikeston, said he plans to announce a tentative opening for the new bridge at that time. Meyer said the $100 million bridge project should be finished before the end of the year with the four-lane span opening to traffic.

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson is scheduled to attend. The bridge is named after Bill Emerson, a former congressman and Jo Ann Emerson's late husband.

Bridge milestone

The kickoff comes three weeks after ironworkers closed the final gap in the steel frame of the new bridge, signaling another milestone for a project that has been under construction for the past seven years.

The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce is helping to organize the events. Civic leaders said Friday that they were keeping details of the various events secret until Tuesday's kickoff.

John Mehner, chamber of commerce president, said the goal is to involve the public as much as possible.

"It is a very historical event," he said of the bridge project.

Civic leaders plan to have T-shirts printed to mark the opening of the bridge.

Tuesday's kickoff event comes 75 years after the opening of the existing two-lane bridge that connected Missouri and Illinois. The old bridge is slated to be demolished next spring.

Mayor Jay Knudtson said the city council plans to attend Tuesday's kickoff.

"The bridge deal has without a doubt drawn the most attention of any project going on," Knudtson said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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