LEADERSHIP CAPE: PROGRAM RECOMMENDS STRATEGIES FOR CITY PROJECTS

A teen-age advisory council, a First Night alcohol-free New Year's Eve celebration and ways to revitalize Cape Girardeau's downtown are some of the ideas the newest class of Leadership Cape Girardeau has conceived for the city.

The program sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce provides training and identifies people who are emerging leaders in the community.

The 25-member class graduated in July, culminating seven months of work. This was the first class to undertake projects in addition to attending monthly daylong workshops in which they were exposed to the workings of city government, law enforcement, health services, economic development and the media along with getting a historical perspective on the city.

The program is good both for people who have recently moved to the city and for people who have lived here awhile and have decided they want to become more involved, said Don Rhodes. Rhodes is vice president of human resources at St. Francis Medical Center and a graduate of the 1998 Leadership Cape program.

The five teams chose their own projects from topics ranging from the arts to government to community pride, health and recreation.

The projects they picked ranged from very practical and to an attempt to re-envision the city's downtown:

The projects were:

-- Downtown revitalization.

-- Teen opportunities in Cape Girardeau.

-- Developing a volunteer program for the Humane Society of Southeast Missouri.

-- Creating a First Night Cape Girardeau celebration.

-- A sign enhancement study.

Cape Girardeau Police Chief Rick Hetzel and Merrill Lynch's Greg Deimund were co-chairmen of the Leadership Cape Girardeau '99 Steering Committee.

Hetzel said the opportunity to network is one benefit of the program.

"One of the things that is important is for leaders to understand the cutting-edge issues," he said. "They can't do that without the opportunity to network with other leaders."

Hetzel, who was involved in a similar program in Georgia before moving here, was enthusiastic about the quality of the ideas in the projects. He particularly likes the downtown revitalization thinking, which is based on the national Main Street model.

"I liked the blend of history and the future," Hetzel said, "and it encompassed a spirit of cooperation among the businesses and the downtown community."

The First Night concept and the teen advisory council also intrigue him.

A student leadership program in Georgia similar to the teen advisory council concept eventually was developed in 13 high schools, he said.

The downtown revitalization project paralleled the Missouri Main Street Program that has been developing downtown. The Main Street approach is an economic development effort aimed at reinvigorating historic downtown and commercial districts.

The downtown group has applied for articles of incorporation as Old Town Cape.

Judith Anne Lang, chairwoman of the Old Town Cape steering committee, has not yet seen the chamber group's final project but shared information with them through the past seven months.

"How it will be most useful to us will be letting people in the community know about the program," Lang said.

Gina Hagerty of Union Planters Bank worked on the teen opportunities project, which advocates the formation of a city teen advisory board that would include parents, teachers and community leaders.

One of the board's functions would be to create a calendar of events so that different organizations in the city would know what others are doing.

The team members also wanted to see teen-agers contribute programming to the community access channel.

"We felt there were lots of opportunities for teens," Hagerty said. "The question was how to make teens aware of all things they could do."

Hagerty said the project turned out to be more work than many people in the class anticipated.

"A lot of people were angry about it," she said. "It was quite a bit of work."

But Hagerty, who moved to Cape Girardeau from Oran just over a year ago, said the program was worthwhile.

"I talked to people who have lived here most of their lives and found out things they didn't know," she said.

Rhodes moved to Cape Girardeau two years ago from Decatur, Ill., where he participated in a similar program. He said that city implemented one of the program's projects, a community pride theme, by developing a billboard campaign and airing radio spots.

Right now, no mechanism exists for making sure the projects go beyond ideas.

"I think that will evolve," Rhodes said.

Rhodes and Kathy Swan of JCS/Tel-Link will co-chair the next class to begin in January.