Going up in lights

Fifty-five limited edition prints of a new painting depicting the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge were sold for $200 each Wednesday morning to kick off a campaign to raise approximately $120,000 needed to pay for the bridge's decorative lighting.

"Eastern Access," a view of the still-to-be-completed bridge from the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, was unveiled before about 90 people invited to the Indigo Restaurant in downtown Cape Girardeau. The painting by Perryville, Mo., artist Eric Bryant was commissioned by Cape Girardeau advertising executive Jim Riley.

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson was one of three political leaders -- U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, represented by Tom Schulte, and Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder were the others -- given free prints. Emerson's print included a likeness of the late congressman.

"It's going to make a very big difference for all of us in Cape Girardeau," she said of the bridge.

She announced she would buy eight more copies to share with her children and with Bill Emerson's mother, Marie Emerson Hahn, who also attended the event. Emerson said she will donate another $1,000 to the "Let's Light the Bridge Campaign."

Hahn said she loves the painting and thinks the late congressman, who died in 1996, would too.

"I think he'd have been thrilled with it," said the 85-year-old Lutheran Home resident.

Organizers of the campaign hope to raise about $50,000 through sales of the 375 prints issued. All of the 24-by-36-inch prints have been numbered and signed by the artist. The remaining funding needed will be solicited from private individuals and from companies.

Lighting the bridge will cost $432,880. A federal transportation grant will provide $310,810 of the amount, leaving about $122,000. Cape Girardeau lawyer John Layton, who, along with Dr. Nelson Ringer, has been working on the lighting project for the Chamber of Commerce since 1987, said another $20,000 contribution to the project will be announced soon.

Layton said no source of funding has yet been identified for maintaining the more than 140 lights once they are installed. The annual cost of maintenance and power was estimated at $7,000 to $9,000 in 1995 and has not been updated.

In other localities, Layton said, the municipality, the county, the state and the utility have shared the cost of maintenance and power.

"I imagine if we get the lights on the bridge, we'll get somebody to pay the power company," he said.

On display

"Eastern Access" will be on display during June in the window of the S. Gregg Gallery at 112 N. Main St. The painting will be sold in a silent auction to be conducted during the month, with proceeds also going to the bridge lights fund.

This is the first project of its kind for the 37-year-old Bryant. The free-lance artist previously has concentrated on doing images of sports figures. He currently is working on 27 paintings of running back Emmitt Smith for a trading card company.

Before he was hired for the job and could gain access to the Illinois side, he shot a roll of film of the Cape Girardeau landscape while driving east to west across the existing bridge. He met with the bridge engineers and took photographs from the Illinois side before beginning work on the final painting.

The bridge's 168 cables offered the biggest challenge, he said. "If I didn't paint them literally, at least I had to indicate them. I had to make sure all the vanishing points were connected."

Riley said he thinks the bridge's towers will become a powerful symbol for Cape Girardeau, and his company has incorporated them into a logo for the city that has been put into the public domain.

"When it comes to symbolizing a city with a bright future, the bridge is almost complete," he said.

Riley announced his own $1,000 donation to the campaign in the names of his Red Letter Communications employees. He also gave prints to Dalhousie Golf Course, which he predicted will become Cape Girardeau's most important tourist attraction, and to the First Presbyterian Church, which is beginning a new capital campaign to build an education center.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182