COY, OTHERS UNCERTAIN ON FUTURES

World War II was just ending when Grace Coy went to work for the state license fee office here. Hers is a familiar face to longtime Cape Girardeans, most of whom must pay a visit to her office at least once a year.

In those nearly 50 years, Coy has watched numerous agents, managers and new regulations come and go. Now she and the office's three other employees are uncertain about their own futures.

"We don't know what's going to happen," she said.

Coy, who has managed the office since the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce became the agent in 1981, was notified officially after the close of business Wednesday that a new agent will take over after Oct. 1.

She spoke evenly with Dean Powell, assistant administrator with the state Department of Revenue's Field Services office in Jefferson City. "I've been through this before," she told him, trooper perhaps to the end.

Afterward, her sangfroid slipped, but only a bit.

"Everybody is uneasy," she said. "It's a sad day. You just try to take it and go on."

Actually, Chamber of Commerce President Bob Hendrix had given her the unofficial news earlier in the day, and she said, "There have been rumors since last spring."

The decision followed similar changes in Poplar Bluff, Perryville and other towns in Southeast Missouri. Individuals are the new agents in most cases; the Southeast Missouri State University Foundation will become the Cape Girardeau bureau's new agent.

Before the chamber took over the bureau, it was a political plum handed out by the party in power. Thomas Harris was the agent when Coy first went to work in the office, followed by Hinkle Statler and then his wife Catherine, Russell and Pauline Young and then Pauline alone upon his death. Cecil Tate was the sole Republican in the span, and then Pauline Young again ran the operation before the chamber took over.

Through all those years, Coy and the license bureau have become associated in people's minds. "They all know who I am," she said. "My children hated going to the grocery store with me."

The office has been housed in the former dry cleaning store at 220 N. Main St. since 1965. That's when Coy got the green Remington typewriter she still uses, the manual one with the deeply grooved space bar.

The validator that puts an "87" on every piece of paperwork that goes through the Cape Girardeau office has been whacked so many times that Coy once got a condition called carpenter's elbow.

She has stayed with the job because "I like people. You would have to like people to stay in this office. The public is getting harder and harder to work with," she said.

Problems usually are caused by misunderstandings about new regulations.

Coy said she often works from 8:30 a.m. until the 4 p.m. closing without moving from behind the counter, and seldom leaves the office until after 6.

She is eligible for retirement but says, "I really do not want to retire."

Whether any of the office's employees will be retained by the University Foundation is unknown.

Unlocking the door to let the last of the other employees out for the day, she said, "Don't worry about it."