NEW NATURE CENTER TO BE CONSIDERED TODAY

Missouri's Conservation Commission will consider a new concept, a Conservation Campus, for Cape Girardeau County today.

The commission meets in Cassville today. County Commissioners Gerald Jones and Max Stovall and Southeast Missouri State University Provost Dr. Charles Kupchella plan to be on hand to answer questions.

The Conservation Commission heard a presentation on a proposed nature center in January. The proposal included cooperation with the county park system and Southeast Missouri State University. Since that time, conservation department staff investigated possibilities and put together a plan.

"What they have done is expanded our nature center idea to a Conservation Campus," Jones said.

Kathy Love, outreach and education division administrator, for the Conservation Department, explained the project.

In it's current form, the center would include a 19,000-square-foot nature center. In addition, extensive landscaping and outdoor skill areas would be included.

"We could, for instance, have an area to teach archery or outdoor cooking or historic crafts, or fishing," said Love. "We could have demonstration areas with butterfly gardening, landscaping for wildlife, a trapper's cabin, a recreation of a cypress swamp."

In addition, an outreach component is planned. "We would have some type of mobile facility or personnel to take conservation programs to schools and communities outside Cape Girardeau," Love said.

The Conservation Campus name denotes the extensive development of outdoor facilities and the outreach component, she said.

"This facility would be focused on Southeast Missouri as a region that is unique to our state, and that too makes it different from our other facilities," she said.

The price range is set between $4.4 and $6.4 million.

The county has offered to donate land in the county's north park. In preparation for this project, the county has purchased an additional 50 acres at the park, including rolling hills and areas suited to hiking trails.

In addition, the county has offered to finance the project through a lease-purchase agreement. The county would arrange financing through bonds and the state would make the payments.