HOMECOMING '98: BANDS, FOOTBALL AND AN ANGEL

Southeast Missouri State University president Dale Nitzschke presented the Friend of the University Award to B.W. Harrison Saturday morning at the Show Me Center.

Southeast Missouri State University celebrated Homecoming 1998 with a parade, a football game and a salute to an angel.

The "angel," B.W. Harrison, received the "Friend of the University" award, presented by the Southeast Missouri University Foundation at the annual Copper Dome Society breakfast Saturday.

"We honor a true angel in the life of the foundation and the university," said University President Dr. Dale Nitzschke.

"He is a visionary who can clearly see how all the pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle, fit together," Nitzschke said.

Last spring Harrison provided an $800,000 gift to the foundation to purchase the buildings and grounds of St. Vincent's College and Seminary in Cape Girardeau from the Priests of the Congregation of the Mission.

Southeast plans to turn the former Catholic school into the university's new River Campus, home of a new School of Visual and Performing Arts.

Harrison's gift paved the way to begin the planning process and to provide maintenance support for the current property until such time as the project is funded, the design can be finalized and renovation of the facilities begins.

On Tuesday, Cape Girardeau voters will decide whether to increase and extend the city's hotel-motel tax and to extend the city's restaurant tax to help pay for the project. Private and state funds will be necessary to cover the remaining cost.

Harrison said Saturday the award truly belongs to two others, his late wife, Hazel, and her mother, Cecilia Huhn.

"Any of the vision I'm credited with for attempting to preserve the seminary had its roots in them," he said. Harrison said they were devoted Catholics with close ties with the seminary and the priests who worked there.

Harrison lives just north of the St. Vincent's College property at 340 S. Lorimier, in a house that his wife's father completed in 1906.

He graduated from Salem High School and owns and operates a family farm there that was originally purchased from the government in 1852. He graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1936 and had a 40-year career with the Missouri Extension Service, including assignments ranging from assistant county agent to state extension agent. His career included a decade of service in Dunklin County.

The "Friend of the University" award recognizes those who support and are closely associated with the mission, purposes, plans and programs of the university. It is the highest honor bestowed by the foundation and was first awarded in 1988.

Harrison joined in Homecoming festivities Saturday by riding in the Homecoming Parade down Broadway.

Over 100 entries, including 10 large floats, 17 smaller floats and 16 area bands participated.

Among parade participants was Irene Primo, who celebrated her 100th birthday in February. She was a freshman at Southeast in 1916. In the parade, she rode in a wagon pulled by a pair of mules.

Floats combined the university's 125th birthday celebration with Halloween and traditional homecoming themes, along with a few surprises like showers of confetti and smoking rocketships.

A variety of class reunions and organization reunions were held on campus. And the Southeast football Indians lost to Middle Tennessee State University at Houck Stadium.