PRESIDENT OF MISSOURI 2004 KEYNOTES MARKETING BANQUET

Richard Pisani, president of 2004 Missouri and a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, will be guest speaker at Southeast Missouri State University's Marketing Club Spring Banquet, to be held at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau Friday.

"We're excited to have Pisani as our guest speaker," said Charles R. Wiles, club advisor for the marketing club. "He will be speaking on how a `Bullet Train' might lure the World's Fair and the Olympics to Missouri in 2004."

Pisani, who is president of his own business, American Marketing Group, Inc., and state chairman of 16 Missouri Small Business Development Centers, is a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University.

He will be honored at a reception from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Alumni Center. Pisani is also founding president of the university's St. Louis Alumni Chapter.

The banquet will be held at 7 p.m.

Cost of the event is $12.50, payable to the marketing department.

"It is through our banquet that we, as a professional marketing organization, bring students, faculty, and business people together," said Shari Budde, Marketing Club president. "We're proud to bring to the campus a successful alumnus who continues to promote economic progress and support small business growth in Missouri.

Pisani, who visited Cape Girardeau recently as a speaker at an event sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce, is hoping his bullet train idea will help lure the Games and Fair back to Missouri in 2004 a century after St. Louis hosted the World's Fair.

His idea is a 320-mph high-speed train that would make St. Louis and Kansas City just 45 minutes apart and enable visitors to travel between the two cities for the events. Once the Fair and Olympic Games were over, Missouri would be left with a major high-speed rail system that could serve as a catalyst for long-term economic development, he said.

High-speed trains are already in use in Europe and Japan, and several states are studying the possibility of bringing high-speed rail to the United States.

Pisani, a 1971 graduate of Southeast Missouri State University, now lives in St. Louis and is president of 2004 Missouri, the group trying to bring the rail, Olympics and World's Fair to the state 12 years from now.

The group is affiliated with a national organization known as the High Speed Rail Association, which is promoting the development of a national network of bullet trains.

One potential route for a high-speed train in Missouri would be along I-55, which would link St. Louis and Memphis, with a stop in between around Cape Girardeau. The trip between St. Louis and Memphis would take about an hour.

Other routes being considered in Missouri would be along I-44 between St. Louis and Springfield. The route from Kansas City to St. Louis could also be expanded westward to Topeka, Kan., and eastward to Chicago.

Not only does Pisani's group hope to bring the high speed trains to Missouri, it also is hoping that Missouri can become the state where the trains are built.

"Creating jobs for Missouri is what this is all about," Pisani said.

The 2004 Missouri group is now raising funds to hire a lobbyist in Washington to solicit federal funds for planning purposes.