PROFILES: UNLESS PACKERS CALL, MEHNER PLANS LONG RUN AT CHAMBER

When John Mehner surveys his domain, he leans back in his office chair, puts his hands behind his neck, and smiles contentedly.

He is a man in his element.

A personable, goal-oriented achiever, he seems well suited to lead one of the state's largest and most active chambers. Mehner was chosen president of Cape Girardeau's Chamber of Commerce in 1993.

Most people think of him as a home-grown boy. He is ... but he's not.

He was born 35 years ago in Affton, a St. Louis County community. When he was not quite 4, his family moved to Cape Girardeau in the middle of a snowstorm. He grew up a middle child, with two older sisters, one younger brother. He graduated from Cape Girardeau Central High School and Southeast Missouri State University, and still calls many of his grade school classmates friends.

To see him as chamber president, one might think it was always his calling.

Think again.

Growing up, a yearning for professional sports inspired him.

"I always wanted to be a professional football player. There was no doubt in my mind," he says, reminiscing those boyhood days with a toothy grin.

And for four years -- he calls them the years that didn't exist -- Mehner was a police officer in St. Louis County. "I saw as many horrible things as you want to see in an entire life."

Mehner admits he's always been a sports nut. "With older sisters, that wasn't always easy," he teases.

From the start, he was a Green Bay Packer zealot. He was not alone. Under Vince Lombardi, the mean green team dominated professional football in the mid to late '60s and amassed fans as easily as it crushed opponents. Not surprisingly, his childhood idol was Bart Starr -- the masterful quarterback of the Pack.

One day when Mehner was 8, the enterprising boy called information in Green Bay, Wis., and dialed up his hero.

"I talked to him very briefly," Mehner says, still somewhat awestruck. "He said all the normal things you'd expect him to say. He was great. He sent me a picture."

Soon after, his dad was inspecting the telephone bill at the dinner table. "Who in the world called Green Bay, Wis.?" he asked incredulously. All eyes turned to young John. A scolding followed, but you can tell it didn't diminish the pleasure. Starr is a man Mehner would still love to meet today.

A Packer zealot

Mehner likes the roughness of sports. "I guess it was a macho thing," he admits. "In sports, you had to be strong, fast and work as a team."

In junior high, he played football and baseball.

His parents worried about their driven son. "Bless their hearts, I was always so skinny that my parents made it part of their daily life to prepare me for the letdown that I would not play professional football."

In his sophomore year, the coaches told him he wasn't fast enough to be a wide receiver. "They told me to gain weight to play on the line. I did the raw egg and ice cream, waffle and pancakes and peanut butter thing." The 160-pound sophomore transformed into a solid 205 by senior year.

A big regret

After graduation, he had no grand illusions about football.

"I wasn't great. I never could have played at a major university, but I could have played here."

Southeast did not offer him a football scholarship.

He had worked the last couple of years of high school -- washing dishes at Port Cape Girardeau and selling shoes at Gallenkamps.

Disillusionment combined with a taste of work and wages prompted Mehner to turn his back on football. He enrolled in classes, but not for the team.

"It used to be my biggest regret," he muses, searching his office ceiling for some answers. "After my freshman year, I still thought it was a mistake. I played spring football as a sophomore for one year, but it wasn't the same. There were 80-90 guys on the team and I didn't know any of them."

Mehner says the years bring fewer regrets.

"I played on the line the last three years of high school, and you butt a lot of heads. I still have a lot of trouble with my neck and shoulders. As I get older, I'm glad I didn't play four more years of football."

Murder and intrigue

In college, his life took an unexpected turn. He chose a major in law enforcement.

"Part of the appeal is that I'm nosy and I like to know what's going on and have a hand in it. It fits my job now," he jokes.

Murder had also hit home in peaceful Cape Girardeau in a shocking way -- a mother and daughter were brutally killed, the first in a string of unsolved murders. "There was some intrigue to all of that," he says.

Mehner found he really enjoyed the studies -- especially law and investigative classes. He and another graduate -- Brad Wood -- were chosen for the St. Louis County Police Department, considered at that time one of the most professional and advanced in the country.

Both Mehner and Wood excelled at the police academy. Mehner finished first academically out of more than 40 recruits. Wood achieved first overall, which included physical fitness and shooting. He calls it a credit to Southeast's program and particularly to their mentor Mike Brown.

Massage parlor crack down

While in the academy, Mehner and some of the younger recruits helped in a prostitution crackdown in St. Louis County massage parlors.

He grins sheepishly and leans back in his chair with a "I know what you're thinking" kind of look. "We were fortunate in helping them close down a number of massage parlors," he counters.

These young recruits were allowed a few drinks, and generally used the "I've had a fight with my girlfriend" ploy. The idea, as you might expect, was to get propositioned. "Then we'd conveniently have second thoughts and leave," he says.

How far would they go for an arrest?

Mehner was short on details and long on smiles. "You don't tell your mom those kinds of things," he admits.

`I will survive a shooting'

After 12 weeks of training, he hit the streets -- in a one-man patrol car. Ironically, his beat included his childhood home in Affton.

How tough was it?

As part of the intense training, officers were taught to perform a daily affirmation. "You'd look at yourself in the mirror each morning and say `I will survive a shooting incident.' They found that in so many shootings, people were so shocked that it happened that it had a significantly negative impact on their physical standing. It was a daily habit for me."

The St. Louis County force was known as "The Proud Ones" and officers wore brown. He carried a Ruger .357.

Wherever he went, the gun and uniform attracted attention. The attention could be particularly frustrating in restaurants when parents would threaten wayward children with an arrest.

"That's not the message you want to send kids -- that if you don't sit still in your chair at McDonald's, you'll be arrested. I wanted to be their friend," he laments.

The first two years on the force were enjoyable -- the second two years a daily nightmare.

"I saw suicide, murders, burglaries, rapes, homosexual rapes. You can see everything as a police officer and I saw it. It affected me to the point I didn't care. I saw too much disgusting crap and death."

He never had to fire his gun, but had several "touch and go" situations with guns drawn. Once, while driving down the street listening to a Cardinal game, his front windshield exploded from gunfire.

"Talk about having your heart in your throat," he laughs nervously. He was showered with glass shards, but escaped serious injury.

Seven bodies in five days

What put him over the edge was one week when temperatures climbed past 100 each day. He dealt with seven bodies in five days.

Mehner sighs and shuts his eyes tightly for a second. He continues almost monotone, as if to brush away the searing emotions of that week.

"This was my hell week. God was trying to tell me to get out."

He recalls one old man named John who lived next to the police station on Gravois. Officers would wave to him as he mowed his yard.

Mehner rubs his face and leans back in his chair.

That July, the old man died while watching TV in his un-air-conditioned house.

His wife "flipped her lid" and shut up the house. When a social worker came to the door about six weeks later, the smell told her to immediately call the police.

"It was a horrible, horrible disgusting situation. I can still see that guy's face -- it's an image that will never leave my mind."

The seventh body of that week was a vagrant who decided to commit suicide by throwing himself in front of a train.

"I remember the crowd. The railroad tracks were just below a restaurant, and the parking lot filled up with people. It irritated me that people had to stop and look -- although it's weird because cops are those kind of people, too."

He remembers a particular man and his son. The boy was about 4 or 5. They kept pushing and talking about getting a better look.

"I was carrying the body up the hill. It was my final body of the week and I kept listening to this guy and his kid talking about wanting to see the body. As I passed them, I said, `You really want to see it?' and I pulled back part of the cover. It was not a good thing to do, but I did it."

During that crazy last year, Mehner married someone he had once arrested for underage drinking. She was 17. A year after the arrest, they were married.

She had not finished high school and had a rough background. But she fit a cop's background to a "T," he says. "She was a project."

It lasted only eight months. The divorce was amiable -- with the same lawyer representing them both.

Starting over

Mehner started over -- leaving St. Louis behind with no regrets. But he feels his years as an officer taught him valuable lessons. He learned critical thinking on his feet, and how to negotiate his way "out of anything." He also learned how to work within a system of rules and regulations. Mehner recommends two years of police work or military service for everyone.

He came back to the family business -- Advanced Business Systems with his dad and sister. He enrolled in Leadership Cape and fell in love with Kristy Back Stanfield, a high school acquaintance. He became very involved in volunteer work. As a Christian, he feels it's important to give back some of what he has gained. An active chamber member, he worked his way up to chairman of the board in 1992.

His son, Austin Jacob, recently turned 4 and is obviously a great love of his father's life. "I have the greatest wife and greatest child in the world," he boasts -- a man far removed from those St. Louis days.

Although he enjoyed the family business, Mehner felt a growing love of chamber work. Something just clicked.

He applied for chamber president but said nothing to his family, figuring his chances were slim to none in the nationwide search. He told his dad when he was chosen as one of five finalists.

"He reacted the way I had hoped he would, but not really the way I expected. It's times like these you really appreciate your parents."

If the Packers call ...

His office reflects his love of Cape Girardeau and devotion for goal setting. His trusty Franklin planner is always nearby, and a list of long-term chamber goals is posted on the back of his door. A golf print adorns one wall -- portraying an infamous Par 69 course with 6,056 yards and a 118 rating.

"I'm a hacker," he shrugs.

Through it all, Mehner remains a devoted sports fan. A year ago in December, he and his brother went to Lambeau Field in Green Bay for his first Packer game. "It was a crying experience for me. Packer fans will understand."

Temperature at game time was 1 degree with a wind chill of 30 degrees below zero. "They beat the Rams and I remember every moment. It was perfect," he says slowly as if savoring the memory.

He loves the work and plans to serve as chamber president "as long as the board will have me."

There are not many things he would leave this job to do.

"Of course, if the Packers call tomorrow and offer me a job -- I'm not sure I could turn that one down."

Bart Starr would be proud.