SANTA DROPS IN TOWN PLAZA

Tyler Maidlow, 4, had never seen Santa parachute before. But then, neither had his parents, Rod and Barb Maidlow of Cape Girardeau.

So they and Tyler's younger brother, Austin, along with hundreds of others, waited with upturned faces on the parking lot of Town Plaza Shopping Center Saturday.

First Tyler spotted the plane, then the three tiny figures jumping from it. Tyler jumped and pointed as the parachuting figures got closer and he recognized the man in red. "Santa," yelled the children in the crowd as the man from the North Pole and first two, then three more of his elves landed in an 80-by-40-foot, roped-off area of the parking lot."Cool" was how Kenny Kile, 7, of Chaffee described the Santa drop.

Not only was seeing Santa parachute a first for most of those in the crowd, it was a first for Santa, too. At least, it was the first time Ian Sutherland, an assistant prosecutor in Cape Girardeau County and an experienced skydiver, had ever jumped wearing a Santa suit."I had one boy asked if jumping was fun or scary," Sutherland said. "I told him it was both."The skydiving elves Stan Hubbard, Ralph Bailey, Paul Gholson, Don Dorris and Dee Barger were members of the SEMO Skydiving Club. Helping out was Debbie Piper, Gholson's girlfriend, who said she spent 30 minutes sewing the costumes to make sure they stayed on during the drop.

The Santa drop was sponsored by Just Kids World and participating merchants at Town Plaza."We wanted to do something to draw attention to the area and to promote Christmas for the kids," said Don Harris, owner of Just Kids World and Just Kids World Learning Development Centers in Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Dexter and Perryville.