PELTS TO RESIGN AS SEMO REGENT

Mark Pelts, a member of the Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents since 1991, is resigning. His six-year term doesn't expire until 1997.

Pelts, 39, is a lawyer in Kennett. He said he will continue to serve on the board until Gov. Mel Carnahan appoints his replacement. But he said he wants off the board as soon as possible.

He announced he would resign at a closed-door meeting of the regents Tuesday. Pelts expects to send his resignation letter to the governor early this week.

Pelts said he is resigning partly because of family matters. He also is busy with his law practice, his father-in-law's oil company and other business interests.

His father-in-law had heart surgery for the third time last spring, and his wife has had several eye surgeries. The latest was scheduled over the weekend in Memphis.

"It is extremely hard to devote time to the university when you have other things going on. And secondly, when you are a hundred miles away from the university, it is especially hard to even attempt to keep up with what is going on."

Pelts said he didn't want to serve on the board in name only. In the past, some regents quit attending board meetings but didn't resign.

Pelts also expressed a general frustration over what he perceives as a public misconception that the regents set policy for the university.

In reality, he said, policies are "synthesized and compromised" through university committees. Regents, he said, simply provide the final endorsement.

Pelts, a Republican, was appointed to the board by then-Gov. John Ashcroft. He thinks six years is too long for any regent to serve.

"I hope that they will remember that I burned out rather than rusted out on the Board of Regents."

Fellow regents said Pelts has been outspoken since coming on the board.

"Mark Pelts is a trial lawyer, and trial lawyers by nature are controversial," Regent Lynn Dempster of Sikeston said Saturday.

"I have always found Mark Pelts to be a straight shooter," said Regent Don Dickerson, a Cape Girardeau lawyer.

Kala Stroup, Southeast's president, said Pelts was a strong supporter of the university's involvement with the Crisp Bootheel Education Center in Malden.

Pelts opposed the Southeast Missouri University Foundation's takeover of the license bureaus in Cape Girardeau and Jackson last fall. He said the move smacked of partisan politics on the part of Carnahan. Formerly the license bureaus were operated by the chambers of commerce in Cape Girardeau and Jackson.

In the 1992 gubernatorial election, Pelts publicly supported Carnahan.

Pelts said he had been considering resigning for months.