MISSOURI IN MOURNING: COUNTY, CITY OFFICES TO BE CLOSED TODAY

County courthouses and some city offices are closed across the region today in observance of the funeral of Gov. Mel Carnahan, who died Monday in a plane crash.

County and city offices in Cape Girardeau and Jackson, Mo., are closed with the exception of the Cape Girardeau County clerk's offices.

While Cape Girardeau city offices will be closed for an official day of mourning, trash will be picked up as usual. The transfer station and recycling drop-off center will be open until 3 p.m., Cape Girardeau city officials said.

The Jaycee Municipal Golf Course, Central Municipal Pool and the Osage Community Centre also will remain open.

There will be no trash pickup in Jackson today. Today's trash will be picked up Monday, city officials said.

County commissioners Larry Bock and Max Stovall voted Thursday to close the county offices after receiving word that Gov. Roger Wilson had declared today as an official day of mourning. Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones was out of town.

Bock and Stovall ordered the county clerk's offices at the County Administrative Building in Jackson and the Common Pleas Courthouse Annex in Cape Girardeau to remain open so people can cast absentee ballots.

Stovall said a number of county courthouses planned to be closed today. They included courthouses in Bollinger, Wayne, Stoddard, St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve, Perry, New Madrid, Mississippi and Scott counties.

Southeast Missouri State University is open today, as are public schools, but the university plans to observe moments of silence at all its homecoming events today and prior to the start of Saturday's football game at Houck Stadium.

The university also has placed a condolence book at the front desk of the University Center and another at the main desk at the Towers complex. Students, employees and the general public can write their condolences in the books through Oct. 27.

Southeast officials also plan to include photographs of Carnahan taken during his visits to the school over the years and send the complete package to the Carnahan family.

The photographs will include ones of the Carnahan family in 1998 at the dedication of the renovated political science building as A.S.J.. Carnahan Hall in honor of Carnahan's father, a former U.S. congressman.

"We wanted to do something for the Carnahan family," said Diane Sides, interim director of university relations at Southeast.

Each of the books has about 60 pages and more pages can be added, she said.

The books, Sides said, allow people to express their feelings of "grief, sorry or sympathy." They were placed at the desks Thursday afternoon and immediately garnered attention.