REACHING NEW HEIGHTS TO SAVE ST. VINCENT'S

"I've got a friend who flies and this can guide him home," says Diana Steele of the newly repainted roof-top cross, almost oblivious to the fact that she's on a slanted roof five stories up.

She puts the paintbrush down, tests the thin rope that she says will hold if she happens to slip, and takes a seat.

"I love old things -- old churches, old schools, old cemeteries." she says. "And I especially have a passion for this building."

Obviously.

Steele spent her Saturday morning on the roof of St. Vincent's Seminary painting one of the crosses that sits atop it. She invited local newspaper and television reporters hoping that her stunt would bring public attention to her plight: saving the seminary.

Steele is the director of community relations for the Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation. The foundation got the title to the seminary property in April 1995 on a promise to make payments totaling $600,000 to the land's original owners, the Vincentian Fathers of St. Louis.

The foundation initially did make monthly payments of $4,500 a month after a $50,000 down payment. But now the money has run out and the foundation has extended its loan for several months.

They had raised all but $120,000 of the balance but last week the Vincentians began foreclosure proceedings, saying they had others interested in the land.

The attorney for the Vincentians, Al Lowes, said the money should have been paid off in February or March and that $525,000 isn't what they agreed on. He said they won't settle for anything less than the entire $600,000, especially now that others are interested.

The foundation stands to lose all that they've paid if they don't come up with the money to pay the Vincentians. Steele said she hasn't gotten any foreclosure paperwork and she's not giving up until she does.

She believes that if they don't succeed in raising the money before the foreclosure is complete, the building will be torn down by those who buy the land.

"The land is worth more money without the buildings on it," she said. "But what they're not taking into account is the sentimental value. This is one of the oldest buildings remaining in Cape that hasn't been preserved."

The seminary is comprised of three connected buildings that overlook the Mississippi River. The buildings were built respectively in 1843, 1851 and 1871 by Joseph Lansman, who also built the Common Pleas Courthouse and other local buildings.

The seminar served as a school from 1843 until the final graduating class of 1979. Steele said that by 1900, the seminary was credited with training all the Catholic priests west of the Mississippi.

"That's impressive," she said. "And it's historical. We can't afford to let this place go."

But there's more to the seminary that sentiment.

"We have a ghost," she announces casually. Ol' Henry King. He was a black man who was the gardener for the school."

Ol' Henry King died in the garden when a tornado came roaring through Cape Girardeau in 1850. Legend has it he haunts the choir lofts, but she says she's never heard anything from her offices.

"I think those old souls know that I'm not going to bother them," she says. "Maybe they're protecting the seminary."

With Steele around, it doesn't need much protecting. Steele said if bulldozers ever do show up at the door to raze the buildings, she'll tie herself to the front door to save it.

Or whatever else it takes. She's that passionate about the building.

"But I'm trying to be realistic," she says resoundingly. "So many of my friends went to school here. It's like a parent losing a child."

If they do lose the fight, she says she's going to take lots of photographs of the buildings before they're destroyed and talk to as many of the people who know about it as she can find.

Then, she says maybe she'll write a book.

"That way all I'll have to do is close my eyes and I'm still here," she says.

She still has faith that the seminary will be saved. She wants to show people how important the seminary is, not only historically but culturally.

"The best thing people can do with this building is come up here at 5:15 in the morning and open those eastern bay windows and watch the sun come up.

"Look out over the Illinois horizon and watch as the first ray of sun shoots across the sky like a rocket man. And then another ... and another ... and another.

"It's beautiful."

She does it most mornings and it's her favorite part of the day.

"It's a reminder that it's a new day and good things can happen," she said.

Like maybe raising $120,000.