MCDONALD'S STRAWS FOUNDATION OF RETIREE'S HOBBY

It all started innocently enough. When the McDonald's restaurant opened in Perryville more than 13 years ago, Kenneth and Wanda Corse, who then lived in rural Perry County, began eating there. After his wife, Wanda, would finish her Diet Coke, Kenneth Corse would pocket a couple of the colorful McDonald's straws.

By the time the couple moved to Cape Girardeau 12 years later, in July 1990, after retiring from their Perry County farm, Corse's fascination with the colored straws grew stronger. By then, he had accumulated several thousand straws.

"It was time to do something with them," said Corse.

Having farmed for 30 years in Perry County, after first working on the Mississippi River for 12 years, Corse did a lot of building. So he decided to use the straws that he had collected over 10 years to construct a replica of the McDonald's in Perryville.

"Why not?" said Corse. "After all, that's where the straws came from."

He started working on replica in September 1991. Four months, 6,500 soda straws, 4,040 straight pins and nine bottles of glue later, the 4-by-3-foot building was complete. It sat on a 6-by-8-foot board that includes a circle drive, the familiar McDonald's golden arches, a drive-up menu board, playground and miniature cars.

Corse realized he had found something he really enjoyed doing in his retirement years. So he continued to collect drinking straws to build more models. "I've even purchased several hundred of them to complete other straw projects," he said.

Since 1991, Corse has completed 12 straw building projects, and is now working on his 13th. The projects also include:

-- A model of a Corps of Engineers buoy tender towboat and two barges.

-- A replica of the historic Burroughs estate house in the center of the apartment complex where Corse and his wife live.

-- A model of Noah's Ark.

-- Models of the general store, bank and post office in Brazau, in Perry County.

-- A model of the Corse family home on Route C in Perry County.

-- An Indian wigwam.

-- A model of an Arkansas jon boat.

-- An operating windmill.

-- A replica of Old McKendree Chapel near Jackson.

-- A replica of the first log cabin seminary of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod at Altenburg.

-- A replica of Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Perry County.

-- A replica of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Perry County.

So far Corse has worked over 100 hours on the Bethlehem Baptist Church, which is nearing completion on the couple's kitchen table. The table doubles as a work bench when he's working on a model.

"I'm always glad when Kenneth finishes a job," said Wanda Corse. "I get my kitchen table back for a while."

Because the models are so large, it takes four hands at times to build them. That's when his wife steps in to help. She also keeps track of his time and the materials used on each project.

Wanda Corse said they have almost $7,000 invested in the completed projects. A lot of that is in labor spent constructing the models.

In addition to drinking straws, Corse uses cardboard, glue, sheets of Styrofoam insulation, and lots and lots of straight pins with brightly colored heads to match the straws.

Corse does not use building plans or patterns; he looks at the building or object he plans to model to get a "feel" for it.

Models of the churches are complete, down to individual pews, a baptistery behind the pulpit, and a bell in the steeple.

Corse said the largest model he's ever built is the McDonald's. But the most difficult was the windmill, he said, because of the tiny pieces of plastic used for the windmill blades. The blades are made from plastic coffee stirrers from McDonald's.

For the first couple of years, Corse kept all of his model buildings in their compact apartment. But as the collection grew, living space became more cramped. So he took them to the Agricultural Heritage Museum near Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport.

Last summer he moved the collection to Black Forest, where they are on display in a building near the old Orangeburg sawmill. The models have been seen by hundreds of school children.

Corse said he's been asked to build a model of the old Common Pleas Courthouse in Cape Girardeau and other local historic buildings. But, he said, "After I finish the Bethlehem church, I'm going to look at some of the historic buildings in Ste. Genevieve and see if I can model some of them."