MEMOS

Garfield's Restaurant and Pub in West Park Mall will celebrate its grand opening Tuesday from 6:30 to 9 p.m. with a special event designed to provide funds for the Area Wide United Way.

Tickets for a special visit to Garfield's are available for $10 from members of the United Way Board of Directors, Garfield's, West Park Mall office, and the Mercantile Bank facility in the mall.

Hors d'oeuvres and refreshments will be served at the restaurant during the special event. A drawing for mall gift certificates will be held, and Garfield's will provide a $25 gift certificate. Additional information is available by calling the United Way office, 334-9634.

The Small Business Development Center will conduct three counseling sessions this month.

The counselor, Gil Degenhardt, will be available Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce office. The sessions, which last about an hour, are free. Call 335-3312 for an appointment.

Degenhardt will conduct sessions at the Sikeston Chamber of Commerce Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon. Appointments are available by calling 471-2498. He will hold sessions at the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission office in Perryville Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Appointments are available by calling 547-8357.

The center represents a "Partnership for Economic Development" between Southeast Missouri State University, the U.S. Small Business Administration, local financial institutions, area utility companies and Southeast Missouri municipalities. Its goal is to stimulate diversity and growth in small business by assisting new and existing businesses to become more productive and more profitable.

"Santa Dollars" again are available at Schnucks.

The Christmas holiday program, now in its fourth year by Schnucks Markets Inc., provides a stocking-stuffer gift and funds for the local Salvation Army.

Santa Dollars are crisp, brand-new, $1 bills with Santa's jovial face placed over the face of George Washington. The bills are legal tender and may be spent or saved like any other dollar.

Each bill comes in its own gift card with a separate envelope ready to address. It sells for $2 plus tax on $1 as required by law. The additional $1 covers the cost of the card, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Salvation Army.

Over the past three years the promotion has raised more than $3,000 for the Salvation Army in Cape Girardeau. The total donated to charities from the sales in all Schnucks markets is more than $75,000.

Also, Schnucks Stores customers provided a total of $646 to the "Hunger Never Takes a Vacation" program to relieve pressure on the region's food pantries and emergency shelters during this year's river flooding.

Food donation coupons were available at Schnucks checkouts for customers to present to their checkers to be added to their grocery bills. All proceeds here were earmarked for FISH of Cape Girardeau.

The total raised from all of Schnucks Stores in the St. Louis, Columbia and Cape Girardeau areas was $97,960.

Construction activity continues to rise in Missouri, reported the F.W. Dodge Division of McGraw-Hill, an authority on the construction market.

Total construction for August, the latest month for which figures are available, was $442,484,000, up about 26 percent over the $351,776,000 in August a year ago.

Overall construction for the first eight months of the year was reported at $3.3 billion, up 10 percent from the $2.9 billion a year ago.

Nonresidential building construction in the state was reported at $1,230,856,000 for the year, up 34 percent from the $918,245,000 for the same period a year ago.

Non-building construction was reported at $452,179,000, down about 30 percent from last year's $646,683,000.

Two Cape Girardeau companies are conducting special events to help the Salvation Army prepare for its annual Thanksgiving Day dinner.

A "Cans Film Festival" will be held at Wehrenberg Theaters Nov. 20.

Anyone bringing a can of food to Wehrenberg Theaters at West Park Mall can see a matinee movie free on Nov. 20. With 10 cans of food, a person can see the movie and receive a free pass for another movie. The person who brings the most cans on Nov. 20 will receive a 1994 Wehrenberg season pass. All canned goods go to the Salvation Army.

The Florsheim Shoe Factory Outlet store in Town Plaza will offer a $10 discount on any pair of men's or women's shoes with a food donation toward the Thanksgiving Day meal.

The store is open seven days a week. The special offer runs through Thanksgiving.

Sonic restaurants throughout the tri-state area have teamed up to help the local chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. During the next few weeks, Sonic employees will be selling special Sonic-MDA coupon books for $2 each, with proceeds going to MDA. The program is expected to raise more than $5,000 for MDA.

The books have a $25 value, including 20, $1 coupons and 10, 50-cent coupons. The coupons may be redeemed at Sonic restaurants in Jackson, Sikeston, Poplar Bluff, Marion, Ill., Metropolis, ill.; Paducah, Ky., Murray, Ky., and Mayfield, Ky.

MDA operates a clinic at St. Francis Medical Center.

ST. LOUIS May Department Stores Co. has reported a 23 percent increase in third-quarter earnings on record sales.

May, one of the largest department store retailers in the United States, reported earnings of $133 million, or 49 cents per share, on sales of $2.73 billion for the period ending Oct. 30. That is up from earnings of $108 million, or 40 cents per share, on sales of $2.51 billion in the same quarter last year.

David C. Farrell of the company said the increases reflect a number of changes for the retailer, including consolidation of department stores and the move of May Merchandising from New York to St. Louis.

Earnings for the first nine months were $346 million, or $1.28 per share, on sales of $7.54 billion, up from earnings of $284 million, or $1.06 per share, on sales of $7.02 billion in the first nine months of 1992.

May operates 310 department stores and 3,699 Payless Shoe Source stores nationwide.

A college degree isn't the only tool needed to crack today's job market.

Westinghouse and USAir hosted a career-information program aimed at noncollege-bound students. They said 70 percent of jobs in the next decade will require training other than college.

"Four years of college may not qualify a student for the kinds of jobs projected to become available in the coming years," said Louis Dimasti of Penn Technical Institute.

Census figures reveal that in 1991 some 25 percent of U.S. workers were college graduates, but only 16 percent reported they needed what they learned in college for their jobs. High school graduates who received training to qualify for certain jobs and to improve their skills had slightly higher median earnings than college graduates who received no such training.