MEMORIAL DAY EVENTS ON TAP ACROSS REGION

The French will help local residents celebrate Memorial Day this year.

La Fete Francaise, a daylong French heritage festival, will take place Monday with activities scheduled throughout the city.

The festival, sponsored by Les Amis or "The Friends," a not-for-profit French colonial heritage support group, will begin at 10 a.m. at Crisp Hall Auditorium on the Southeast Missouri State University campus.

At 10:30, O. David Niswonger, president of the American Iris Society, will give a lecture on "The Fleur de Lis," or the iris, at Crisp Hall. Then Dr. Michael Roark, a geography professor, will speak on Cape Girardeau's French heritage from 11 to 11:45.

Next, the show moves to Riverfront Park on Water Street where the founding of Cape Girardeau by Don Louis Lorimier will be re-enacted. Following the re-enactment, Dennis Stroughmatt and the French Fiddler Friends will perform from 12:15 to 1 p.m.

The afternoon will feature a bus tour of the French influences in Cape Girardeau as well as tours of historic attractions like the Glenn House, the Old St. Vincent Church, Cape River Heritage Museum, Old Lorimier Cemetery, Capaha Park Rose Garden and the Reynolds House.

Laclede Quartet, a string quartet from St. Louis, will perform from 2 to 3 in Old St. Vincent Church. Another band, the Poor People of Paris, will perform from 3 to 4 at the Glenn House Garden.

From 4 to 5, Historyonics Theater Company will dramatize what early life in Ste. Genevieve was like in the Capaha Park Bandshell.

The festival will conclude with a concert featuring the Cape Girardeau Municipal Band and Les Petites Chanteurs, a French children's choir from Ste. Genevieve. Half the concert will include French music; half will be music for a traditional Memorial Day salute to veterans.

The concert will start at 7 in the Capaha Park Bandshell. In case of rain, the concert will move to Cape Girardeau Central High School Auditorium.

In activities elsewhere, the Joint Veteran's Council will have its annual Avenue of Flags starting at sunrise and its Memorial Day ceremony from 10:30 to 11 a.m. Monday in Cape County Park North. In case of rain, the ceremony will move to the Osage Centre.

Jackson will have its flags displayed all day at the Veterans of All Wars Memorial in Brookside Park.

The American Legion will hold its annual Memorial Day ceremony at 9 a.m. Monday at the entrance of Jackson's Old City Cemetery at High and Madison streets. Maj. Jerry Miller, the chaplain of the 135th Combat Engineer Group, will give the address. The Jackson Municipal Band will perform.

And if getting wet is what the kids want, they can go to the Capaha and Jackson municipal swimming pools. Both will be open for Memorial Day.

The Capaha pool opens today and features the new 5-foot tall Triple Tube Pool Slide.

The pool will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. daily. Family swims, where parents get in free with kids, will be from 9 to 11 a.m. every Friday and Saturday.

The Jackson pool also opens today and will be open from 1 to 8 p.m. daily.

The Central Municipal Swimming Pool in Cape Girardeau will be closed until June 10 so the bubble can be removed and the pool drained and cleaned.

After June 10, Central pool will be open from 1 to 8 p.m. daily. A fitness lap swim for adults will be from 9 to 11 a.m. every Saturday.

Admission for the Cape Girardeau pools is $2 for adults 14 and older, $1.50 for senior citizens and $1 for children.

Discount books are available.