COOK WANTS TO BE FIRST COUNTY NATIVE ELECTED STATEWIDE IN 100 YEARS

If successful in November, Secretary of State Rebecca McDowell "Bekki" Cook will become the first Cape Girardeau County native elected to Missouri statewide office in 100 years.

The last was James Monroe Seibert, elected state auditor in 1896.

Cook started down the election highway Sunday at the Common Pleas Courthouse, where she formally announced her candidacy for secretary of state. The information about Seibert was a small part of a speech covering the Democrat's accomplishments over the last 17 months and her future goals.

About 100 people turned out in the Mother's Day cold and drizzle to hear Cook speak.

Today, she will visit St. Louis, Jefferson City, Kansas City and Springfield to make her announcement and deliver a similar address.

Cook took her oath of office on Dec. 16, 1994, four days after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that former Secretary of State Judi Moriarty should be impeached. The appointment catapulted Cook from relative obscurity as a Cape Girardeau wife and mother to life in the spotlight.

From 1979-92, she was vice-president of Oliver, Oliver, Waltz and Cook law firm in Cape Girardeau, leaving to spend more time with her two children. In 1990, Governor John Ashcroft appointed her to the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and Gov. Mel Carnahan later reappointed her.

Cook said she was among the most surprised when Carnahan offered to make her secretary of state. Even though she hadn't ever held or even sought political office, she took the job.

"I made very few promises," Cook said. "But the promises I made were ones that I knew had to be kept. I promised to restore the integrity of the secretary of state's office. I promised to restore public confidence, and I promised to bring a new sense of professionalism to the office."

Her first step was to interview all the personnel in her office personally, seeking which ones to keep as part of her new team and deciding which ones should go because they were still loyal to their impeached boss.

Later she reviewed the election filing process, working to revise a law that encouraged people to stand in courthouse hallways for weeks so their candidates could be on the ballot first. Cook also restructured her office's securities division to protect Missouri investors from fraud.

Future goals mentioned at Sunday's event included helping small businesses become established in Missouri, establishing an audit unit to check brokers' records and making it easier for the elderly and disabled to vote by mail.

Cook said the last 17 months in government haven't been easy, but she wants to keep her job.

"I don't think anyone would want to take on the job that I did and then not have the chance to move the office forward," she said. "I knew I would need an extra four years to get this office where it needs to be."

Cook's husband, John Cook, is a Cape Girardeau attorney. The couple have two children, Hunter, 15, and Morgan, 13.