QUEEN BRINGS GUEST TO CAPE

As Tim Herbez headed back to the riverboat docked on the banks of the Mississippi Saturday afternoon, he stopped to get a souvenir pin of Cape Girardeau to add to the collection of pins he wore on his suspenders.

The pin, given away by the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau, was one which Herbez will keep with the Cape Girardeau pins he has collected over the years.

Herbez, a pianist from New Orleans, has traveled the Mississippi River aboard riverboats off and on since 1978. He is employed as the calliope player for the American Queen, which docked in Cape Girardeau shortly before noon Saturday.

It is because of his work as a musician on a riverboat that Herbez makes sure to disembark from the ship whenever it docks here. Beneath his arm, he held tightly a box filled with sheet music he had just purchased from Key's Music Store in downtown Cape Girardeau.

"I buy all my music from Vi Keys," he said.

"This is nothing," he said, patting the box. "Last summer I purchased over 1,000 pieces of sheet music, most of it from Vi Keys."

The American Queen is the largest of the three riverboats in the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. fleet. Measuring 418 feet long and 97 feet tall, with 222 staterooms aboard, the American Queen will hold 436 guests along with its crew of 180.

The boat is so tall it lowers its smokestacks to clear the Mississippi River bridge in Cape Girardeau.

The six-day cruise of the boat -- the second leg of a three-leg voyage that originally started in New Orleans and will eventually take the vessel to St. Paul, Minn., -- began Wednesday in Memphis and will end Monday in St. Louis. Traveling at top speeds of 11 miles an hour, it takes several days to make the 300-mile trip.

But the slow, leisurely pace of the trip allows the boat to stop in cities like Cape Girardeau and allows the guests aboard to see communities that are much different from the larger, more well-known cities along the river.

On the Memphis to St. Louis leg of the trip, the American Queen docks at New Madrid and Chester, Ill., as well as Cape Girardeau. For many, the stops are a welcome change.

Sandy Vrono from Palm Springs, Calif., and Merle Ribnick from Los Angeles found the stop in Cape Girardeau so refreshing that they went twice on a 35-minute bus tour of city sponsored by the Convention and Visitor Bureau.

Throughout the day, the CVB sponsored about 20 tours of the city on four buses.

Anita Meinz of the CVB Paddlewheelers, was the tour guide on both of the tours of the city that Vrono and Ribnick took. Meinz's job was to tell Vrono, Ribnick and the others on the bus some of the history of the city and to show them many of the city's sites.

"I had never heard of Cape Girardeau before," said Ribnick, "but I love it here."

Ribnick was talked into the trip by Vrono, who had been on the American Queen before but had always made the trip from New Orleans to Memphis. This trip Vrono wanted to see a different part of the country.

The two flew into Memphis on Tuesday, visited Beale Street during the day, spent the night at the Peabody Hotel and left the next morning on the riverboat.

Vrono did not regret her choice for the trip after they made their stop in Cape Girardeau.

"The stores here (in downtown Cape Girardeau) are gorgeous, just like Beverly Hills," she said. "Except everyone here is friendly and there's no pressure."