COUNTY WILL ASK STATE FOR NATURE CENTER IN NORTH PARK

The Cape Girardeau County Commission hopes to convince state conservation officials to build a nature center in the North County Park.

The county commissioners plan to formally pitch the idea to the Missouri Conservation Commission when it meets in Cape Girardeau on Jan. 22.

The Conservation Commission will meet at the state conservation office in the North County Park. It will mark the first Conservation Commission meeting in Cape Girardeau in years. The Conservation Commission met in Cape Girardeau in September 1985.

Gerald Jones, Cape Girardeau County presiding commissioner, said county officials will make a presentation to the Conservation Commission. The presentation tentatively is scheduled for around 1:30 p.m., he said.

The hearing is just one of the items on the Conservation Commission's agenda. The commission is slated to hold both morning and afternoon sessions.

Jones said county officials will be joined in the presentation by Southeast Missouri State University provost Dr. Charles Kupchella and Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association.

Jones said Thursday that a state center would benefit the area in terms of nature education and tourism.

"The center would provide hands on experience for students and the public in at least a 25-county region," Jones said in a letter this week to the chairman of the county park board.

"It would highly improve the Conservation Department's ability to `sell conservation and the environment,' Jones wrote.

Jones said a nature center would benefit students from kindergarten through college by offering programs, projects and research opportunities.

"Research in wildlife biology and environmental awareness issues would be tremendous," Jones said in the letter.

A nature center could cost $5 million to $7 million to build.

Conservation Department officials have said their agency's funding is limited.

"Our budget is very tightly drawn for the next year or two," said Shannon Cave, the department's ombudsman. But Cave said department officials remain interested in the idea.

The county has proposed issuing bonds to build the nature center. The state would then make payments to retire the bonds.

"We offered to build it, finance it and lease it to them," Jones said Thursday.

Jones said the county has available 310 acres of park land and would provide a no-cost, long-term lease for such a facility.

The Conservation Department operates five nature centers. They are in Jefferson City, Springfield, Kirkwood, Independence and St. Joseph.

The nature centers each have classrooms, an exhibit area, and an auditorium. Typically, there are nature trails around the centers.

Kupchella said a nature center could benefit students in environmental science.

The university would consider equipping laboratories in a nature center and offering some of its biology courses there, Kupchella said.

Southeast also could make use of a nature center to help train teachers in how to use the outdoors in teaching science.

A center also could provide the university with some student internship opportunities, Kupchella said.