FILM CREW TO TELL OF RIVER TRIP

Hiromi Kozono is not a well-known personality in the United States, but when he visited Universal Studios in Hollywood a few weeks ago, he was mobbed by a group of Japanese tourists touring the studio.

In Japan, Kozono, known to the Japanese public simply as "Hiromi," is not just a familiar face. He is an actor and television star.

Hiromi, who is host to his own daily television talk show in Japan, was in Cape Girardeau on Monday to film part of a television documentary to air on Japanese television next year.

The documentary will also feature Kazu Maeda, a former Japanese watercraft champion, and American Larry Rippenkroeger from Los Angeles, a four-time world champion on the Jet Ski. Maeda and Rippenkroeger have known and competed against each other for 17 years.

The three are in the middle of a two-week ride down the Mississippi on Jet Skis. They arrived in Cape Girardeau Sunday evening, spent the night in a hotel and resumed their trip down the river Monday morning.

The group started on Aug. 14 at Lake Itasca in Minnesota, the lake generally considered to be the headwaters of the river. They plan to complete their tour at Venis, La., just south of New Orleans, by the end of the month.

They are accompanied on the trip by a film crew from the Joy Co., the television production company making the two-hour documentary of life along the Mississippi River.

The documentary is slated to be shown as a special on Asashi television, a national network in Japan, on New Year's Day, the country's biggest holiday.

In a letter written by Samuel H. Kidder, minister counselor for commercial affairs, the U.S. embassy in Japan endorsed the project as a way of boosting tourism to the 10 states along the river.

"We believe that showing this program will contribute considerably to increasing the number of Japanese travelers to the U.S.," Kidder wrote.

The project was also endorsed by the Mississippi River Parkway Commission, a non-profit organization that promotes international tourism and trade to the 10-state region.

Nearly 30 crew members -- some traveling in the lead boat, others traveling interstate highways -- spent Sunday night with the skiers in Cape Girardeau and helped launch them on their way Monday.

Those in the lead boat filmed the trip along the river. A fourth Jet Ski also carried a cameraman, as did a power glider which occasionally floated above the river to film the skiers from the sky.

The trip down the river has not been without its share of mishaps. Minnesota, which had been without significant rainfall for weeks, was very dry. Parts of the river -- especially in the shallower places between Lake Itasca and the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul -- had gone down so much the skiers had to carry their Jet Skis over rocks.

Rippenkroeger said at times the travel was brutal, causing a fair amount of damage to the bottom of the water crafts.

At first they could travel only 100 miles a day. Normally, they would travel several hundred miles a day.

On another night, the skiers had to cut their ride short when they ran into an electrical storm over the river. The challenge for the skiers at that point was getting in touch with the crew traveling ahead of them on the road.

By the time they put in at Honker's dock in Cape Girardeau on Sunday, they were finishing up day seven of the voyage, and a day behind schedule.

The project has been in the works for more than three months, with project coordinator and producer Teiji Nagashima flying to the United States on several occasions to scout sites for the film.

Hiromi, who spoke very little English, said the trip has been a dream of his for many years and called the trip very fun and very enjoyable.

"But I am very tired," he said.