DIVING FACILITY TO BUILD LARGER BUILDING

Wayne Hughes went on an unscheduled diving expedition Friday morning.

Hughes, a master diver, went underwater to shut off a stuck valve at one of the city's water intake pumps near Cape Rock Park.

Going underwater is nothing new for Hughes. He and his wife, Lynn, both master diving instructors with the International Professional Association of Diving Instructors, own and operate the Academy of Scuba Training Inc., 437 Broadway.

Hughes started teaching scuba diving more than 20 years ago while a student at Southeast Missouri State University to earn extra money.

"This wasn't my planned career," he said. "But, I started spending more and more time training people, and really enjoyed it. We opened the academy here in 1975."

Hughes has announced plans to build a 6,000-square-foot building at 2005 N. Kingshighway in the fall. His current facility is 1,200 square feet.

"The new facility includes a showroom, offices and two classrooms," he said. "One of the classrooms can be converted into a 45-x-20 training tank."

One of the unique features of the new facility is an observation room where visitors can observe the actual diving training in progress.

"The new facility will give us more flexibility without training," Hughes said.

Hughes' Academy is one of 90 facilities in the world rated as five-star PADI training facilities.

"We see a lot of students here," Hughes said. "Students come here from a wide area."

The majority of diving students start taking classes to learn basic fundamentals of diving, he said, "but, most want to continue their studies, eventually becoming certified open water divers."

Many continue studies to become master divers or even PADI instructors.

Hughes calls diving "a great adventure," and says there is always something new, fascinating and challenging in the underwater world.

Over the years, Hughes has visited a number of areas to practice his art and instruct his students.

"We organize a lot of trips to take people where they'll be able to encounter different kinds of underwater life," he said. These include places like the Grand Cayman, the Dutch Antille and British West Indies, and Bonaire.

Bonaire, off the coast of Venezuela, offers easy access to more than 50 dive sites that offer a variety of diving experiences.

The Academy of Scuba Training is planning an expedition to Bonaire June 17 through 24.

While these places are great places to dive, Hughes said he also plans diving trips closer to home.

About 15 instructors and students are in Kentucky this weekend for open-water diving at Cerulean Springs.

Cerulean Springs is an old rock quarry, with depths of up to 35 feet.

"There are some old buildings and an old cabin cruiser boat on the bottom of the quarry," he said.

Another site students and instructors frequent Norfork Lake in Arkansas, where there is advanced open-water diving.

Hughes has done some less glamorous work through scuba diving, too. He helped Sabreliner recover equipment from the Perryville Municipal Airport during the 1993 flood. He has cleaned out Union Electric's water intake here on the Mississippi River, installed pipelines at the power plant in Grand Tower, Ill., has salvaged barges in such places as Owensboro, Ky., and inspected lake beaches before their spring openings for the Army Corps of Engineers.

Along with those jobs, Hughes has performed fish counts and taken photographs for the Missouri Conservation Department.