SMALL TOWNS; ALLENVILLE, FROHNA AND LAMBERT LIVE ON DESPITE THEIR SIZE

Residents of Lambert hope to soon collect enough money to resurface Highway 77, the main street and the road linking Benton and Interstate 55.

Heritage, pride and stubbornness are some of the reasons small Southeast Missouri communities remain incorporated.

Brenda Schiwitz, the city clerk of Lambert, said her small town exists to keep Benton at bay. Lambert, population 34 according to the city limit sign, is located between Benton and Interstate 55 in Scott County.

"They wanted to annex us a few years ago," Schiwitz said, "but they weren't going to give us city water or sewers. We didn't think that was very beneficial to us."

Lambert collects fees from the electric and gas companies as payment for the power and gas lines that traverse the town. Of that money, Schiwitz takes $26 a month and pays for the dusk-to-dawn lights scattered around town. The rest of the money goes into a special projects fund.

"We were thinking about having a homecoming party this year," she said, "but then we realized most of the people that have left Lambert died, and they can't come back. Maybe we'll have a block party or something next year."

Besides a festival, Schiwitz said the town hopes to resurface the main street in the next few years. As soon as enough money accumulates in the account, she said the three trustees will let bids for the work.

The southeastern Perry County town of Frohna is a small town with big goals and projects.

Frohna has city water, a city volunteer fire department, a grocery store and two taverns, plenty of services for the 246 residents. But perhaps the most impressive attribute of the small town is the 10-lot residential subdivision the mayor and four alderman helped develop.

The biggest industry in Frohna, East Perry Lumber Co., employs many area residents but the mayor, Marvin Scholl, an inspector at East Perry for 30 years, said many other residents commute.

"We've got a lot of people who travel to Cape and even to St. Louis on a daily basis," he said. "It's a really nice, quiet community in a good location."

Neither flood nor threat of fire deters folks from the Cape Girardeau County town of Allenville, at least that's what the town's chairman of the board of trustees, Guy Borneman, says.

Allenville becomes an island when the Mississippi River rises and raises the level of the Diversion Channel. And Borneman said although a fire station is planned for the future, Allenville's fire protection comes from Whitewater, a few miles away.

"We keep the town incorporated because we want to make rules and regulations that keep the town clean and safe," he said.

According to Borneman, 33 families -- or about 100 people -- call Allenville home. And those residents also have big goals for their town.

"We're hoping to have the shell of the city hall up by the first of the year," he said. "That's something we're spending money for."

There is a tax levy, Borneman said, and the town also receives money from the state fuel tax. The income isn't much, but for a town that doesn't need much, the money is plenty.

The city hall needed to be built because the town's records became too vast and cumbersome to be stored in someone's home, Borneman said.

Although city services are a plus for many small towns, leaders from Allenville, Frohna and Lambert agreed that the reason the towns remain incorporated is because of pride and the sense of community. And that sense of community, they think, results in their safety.

"Lambert has the lowest crime rate in the county," Schiwitz said.

Borneman and Scholl agreed that neighbors keep a watchful, prideful eye on their communities.