KIND NEIGHBORS KEEP BUSY HELPING OTHERS

Dan Upchurch lives in a kind Cape Girardeau neighborhood.

Neighbors Ray and Joann Leadbetter keep busy visiting shut-ins, driving friends to Florida and working through their church.

Then there's S.S. Borum, who lives up the road. "He's a spry guy," Upchurch said. The 93-year-old Borum spends much of his time visiting nursing homes, hospitals and shut-ins.

Another neighbor, who wishes to remain anonymous, gives out Christmas presents and turkeys during the holidays, buys groceries for homebound friends and generally goes out of his way for others at every turn.

"I'm just blessed to be surrounded by these people," Upchurch said.

Upchurch said Borum would visit his grandmother, Etta Upchurch, once a week when she was sick and confined to her home. He said Borum would pray with his grandmother and made her days a little brighter before she died.

Borum had an automobile accident a year ago and can't drive. Since then, Joann Leadbetter has been his companion and chauffeur during his visits to St. Francis Medical Center and Southeast Missouri Hospital, area nursing homes and shut ins and "anyone who has a need."

Leadbetter said, "I've done these things all my life. We mainly try to lift people up and encourage them."

Borum, a retired Baptist minister, said he has been visiting hospitals since 1950 when he was called to the side of a dying man. He talked to the man for nearly an hour until he felt the man had found God. He left and the man died a few hours later.

He said during his years as a minister, he didn't have the chance to visit as much as he would have liked because of his other obligations. Now it's his visits that keep him busy and he preaches a little on the side.

"I don't preach just to be preaching," Borum said. "If I can't be a blessing to them, I don't need it."

Borum said he is the one that receives the pleasure from his visits.

"I get the joy. I feel good and I don't get tired," he said.

William Matzat, Southeast Hospital's chaplain, said Borum is the clergyman he sees the most at the hospital. He sees Borum most every morning as he makes his calls.

Matzat said when Leadbetter isn't driving him to the hospital Borum's church group pays for cab fare.

"He's tremendous. To think that at his age he has that much energy," Matzat said. "He just lives for it."