LUTHERANS PLAN TO USE ST. ANDREW CHURCH AS TEMPORARY HOME FOR NEW HIGH SCHOOL

Area Lutheran children really have something to sing about when the mass children's choir gathers Sunday to mark the celebration and dedication of Saxony Lutheran High School. A celebration and praise service is planned at 2:30 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church, 100 N. Frederick St.

Children and adults representing area Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod congregations that have formed a Lutheran High School Association will sing in the choirs. More than 400 people are expected to attend the service.

Nearly 20 congregations from Southeast Missouri have joined in support of the high school. It would be the first Lutheran high school in the region. The closest school is in St. Louis. Plans are to open the school in fall 2000 at a temporary site: St. Andrew Lutheran Church at Kingshighway and Cape Rock Drive. But the church must first get permission for a rezoning request from the city.

Nearly every church in Cape Girardeau operates under a special-use permit because most are properties within residential districts, said R.J. McKinney, chairman of the city's Planning and Zoning Commission.

When the commission meets Wednesday at 7 p.m., it will hold a public hearing and consider a rezoning request from St. Andrew Lutheran Church. The church is zoned for a single-family residential district and must change to a general commercial district so that Saxony High School can operate there.

McKinney said he isn't sure whether there will be any opposition to the request since the church is near both a residential and a commercial district.

Special-use permits are issued for a specific organization or person for a specific purpose. When those purposes or people change, the special-use permit becomes void, McKinney said. Lutheran leaders don't think the rezoning request will pose any problems. It is primarily a business matter, and "we don't expect any problems," said the Rev. Paul Short, pastor of St. Andrew Lutheran Church.

Instead church leaders plan to celebrate with a service that includes special music from children's choir and handbells with a brass accompaniment. Speaker will be the Rev. Dr. James Kalthoff, president of the Missouri District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Kalthoff will speak about "Why Lutheran High Schools?"There are 60 Lutheran high schools in the United States but none in Southeast Missouri where the Synod's founding fathers landed after arriving from Germany, said the Rev. David Dissen, pastor emeritus of Trinity Lutheran Church and press secretary for the school association. "It's something totally new for the area but something very historic," he said. A special offering will be collected and used to support the school.

Dissen, who has been serving as interim pastor for a Sikeston congregation, said people there already have been asking to enroll students. But answers to questions about enrollment, tuition and a permanent location are still to come, he said.

Area pastors and representatives from each congregation will participate in the service by signing the school's constitution. The entire service is very historic, Short said. "I think some people are more aware of that than others. It's the actual dedicatory service to start the school."When congregations began meeting about a year ago to talk about forming the school association, some people were surprised at how quickly the association was formed, Short said. "It hasn't slowed down."The school's board of regents is trying to find an appropriate tract of land situated in a central site as the school's permanent location. Sites in northern Cape Girardeau County are being considered. Tours of the temporary site at St. Andrew Lutheran Church will be offered after the service.