PASSAGE OF BONDS BRINGS SMILES

Southeast Missouri State University officials went to bed Tuesday night thinking that the statewide bond issue had been defeated, thereby dooming construction of a College of Business building.

University President Kala Stroup got her wakeup call around 1 a.m. Wednesday. Informed by a reporter that the $250 million bond issue narrowly passed, she preceded to spend the next two hours calling other university officials and supporters to tell them the news.

Art Wallhausen, assistant to the president at Southeast, went to bed thinking the worst. He was awakened by Stroup's call.

So was John Mehner, president of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce.

"I was surprised because the last I had heard the lead was widening in the other direction," Mehner said.

Missouri voters approved Constitutional Amendment 4 by a vote of 416,041 to 408,744, a 7,200-vote margin.

The measure will fund prisons and university buildings across the state, including $12.3 million for a business building at Southeast.

School officials hope construction can commence late this fall or early next spring. Depending on the starting date, the Robert A. Dempster building could open as early as fall 1996.

University leaders had expressed disappointment Tuesday night over the fact that Cape Girardeau County voters rejected the bond issue by a vote of 5,219 against to 4,476 for, or 54 percent to 46 percent.

But Cape Girardeau city voters approved the measure by a similar percentage: 2,949 for to 2,636 against, or 53 percent to 47 percent.

The bond issue carried by 313 votes in the city, passing in nine of the city's 16 precincts. It went down to defeat in seven of the wards, including those in the southern part of the city where bond issues and tax measures have traditionally failed.

Mehner, who along with other chamber officials had backed the bond issue, said he was pleased that Cape Girardeau city voters approved the measure. "This truly shows that the city of Cape supported this bond issue and really to a much greater degree than the entire state of Missouri."

Southeast wasn't alone among the state's regional universities in seeing the bond issue go down to defeat in its home county. The measure was defeated in Johnson County, the home of Central Missouri State University; Nodaway County, where Northwest Missouri State University is situated; and Howell County, the home of Southwest Missouri State University's West Plains campus.

The bond issue passed in Adair County, the home of Northeast Missouri State University; and in Greene County, where Southwest Missouri State University's main campus is situated.

The bond issue includes funding for building projects at all of those schools.

Mehner said the bond issue passed because of the work of many volunteers, including those associated with Southeast. "Had it not been for the hard work of an awful lot of people, it probably wouldn't have happened," he said.

For her part, Stroup praised lawmakers, university supporters and the news media who backed the business building project.

"I am really grateful," she said. "I think every vote helped."

University volunteers reached between 50,000 and 60,000 Southeast alumni, parents, students and supporters through mailings and telephone calls in the weeks leading up to the election.