GOVERNOR ATTENDS PLANT DEDICATION

SIKESTON -- He didn't scream for a Klondike Cone, but after donning a hair net and white lab coat, Gov. Mel Carnahan grabbed a cone off the production line and licked it for the cameras at the dedication of the new Good Humor-Breyer's Sikeston North Plant.

Carnahan toured America's largest ice cream company's biggest plant Thursday. After sampling the cone, Carnahan observed the packaging of Nickelodeon Green Slime Popsicles.

The new, $35 million, 200,000-square-foot plant in the Sikeston Business and Technology Park five miles from the company's Sikeston South Plant has brought the area 150 new jobs. It could bring an additional 200 jobs when it is fully used, company president Eric Walsh said.

That economic news prompted Carnahan to call the event "a proud day for the state of Missouri."

"This plant, I believe, is an excellent example of how business and government can work together to create economic opportunity," he said. "At the state level, we've been pleased to invest in job training and the block-grant support of this project.

"To have 150 new jobs -- good jobs -- here in Southeast Missouri just builds a better anchor for our economic security and our economic future," he said. "They like us out here. They think they get a good value for their employee dollar."

Officials of Good Humor-Breyer's and its parent company, Unilever United States Inc., attended the dedication as did area politicians and state officials.

Inside air-conditioned tents next to the plant, a four-piece band played big-band tunes as officials mingled and glanced at displays chronicling Good Humor-Breyer's history.

Walsh, Richard A. Goldstein, president and CEO of Unilever, and Sikeston Mayor Bill Mitchell spoke before Carnahan's address.

Walsh said: "The decision to expand our operation here when we realized we needed more capacity years ago was not a difficult one. Sikeston was the obvious choice. That entirely reflects the confidence that we have in the people of Sikeston.

"There are no better plants than this one and no people more skilled or committed than those in Missouri," he said.

Children danced to a pop tune, licking a rainbow of Popsicles and wearing company T-shirts to emphasize the importance of children to the company.

Later Thursday, Carnahan spoke at an open house at the Sikeston HOPE Center and attended a groundbreaking for the Missouri Division of Youth Services' new $1.1 million, two-unit, 20-bed residential home in New Madrid.

"Just in the last few years is the first time that we have really put any new money into new juvenile facilities," Carnahan told reporters at the plant dedication. "So we're finally doing it. I'm so glad we're on this.

"It gives us a better chance of being successful in rehabilitating these young people. The whole theory is early diversion (from crime) by a court, with a place to put them to give them treatment and to keep them from continuing a life of crime. So far the diversion program has been working very well."