NAACP TO SPONSOR RACE FORUM FRIDAY

The Cape Girardeau branch of the NAACP hopes a public forum will lead to improved race and "town-gown" relations between faculty, staff and students at Southeast Missouri State University and in the community.

The forum will be held at 6 p.m. Friday at the Cape Civic Center, 232 S. Broadway.

Dr. Bernice Coar-Cobb, a former university faculty member and the vice president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the organization is emphasizing the public forums in part because President Clinton and Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan have endorsed such events as beneficial.

She said the forum was only the first in a series of workshops to be held to improve communication between various sectors of the community. Race relations and those between the university and Cape Girardeau community won't improve until people come to such programs and speak openly and honestly, she said.

"We just aren't doing enough with the university and the community to build more communication," said Coar-Cobb. "This is open to the public, and we invited many young people because we want to encourage them to know what's going on."

Cape Girardeau native Pat Washington will be the guest panelist. She graduated from Cape Girardeau Central High School in 1979 and received a liberal arts degree in mass communications from Southeast Missouri State in 1984.

Washington worked nine years as a journalist before being hired as press secretary for former St. Louis mayor Freeman Bosley. She was appointed to Southeast's Board of Regents in April 1993 and resigned in August 1997 to take a key recruiting job as the school's outreach coordinator in the St. Louis area.

Joining Washington on the panel will be local NAACP officers Juanita Spicer, Helen Sterling and Michael Sterling.

Spicer is a longtime resident of Cape Girardeau and former business education teacher at Central High School. She established the Edward M. Spicer Tutorial Program in Cape Girardeau in 1992 to assist children with learning. She serves on the Southeast Missouri State University President's Commission on Minority Affairs.

She has been actively involved with civil rights for many years and is chairperson of the NAACP education committee.

Helen Sterling is a Cape Girardeau native and graduate of the John S. Cobb School. She has worked as a social worker for the Head Start program, as a volunteer in the Neighborhood Center in South Cape Girardeau and as a municipal court clerk.

She serves as housing chairperson for the NAACP and was in the first group of black students denied admission to Southeast Missouri State University.

Michael Sterling is president of the Cape Girardeau NAACP branch. He has worked as an advocate in the community to help improve housing conditions and set up voter registration drives. Since 1988, he has been an independent life-insurance agent in the Cape Girardeau area. From 1972 to 1988, he served in the Navy. During that time he was a race facilitator for Adm. Elmo Zumwalt.

He serves as a member of the Community Caring Council, is a Red Cross volunteer and a member of the policy council for the East Missouri Action Agency Head Start Program. He also serves on the Southeast Missouri State University Gerontology Community Liaison Committee and the President's Commission on Minority Affairs.