SOUTHEAST GRADS EXCEL IN SAN DIEGO

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - When the nation's sixth-largest city recently honored 17 San Diego area residents as "Headliners of the Year," two of the honorees turned out to be Southeast Missouri State University graduates.

Dr. Bill Stacy was honored for his contributions to education, and Dr. Jerry Caulder was recognized for his advancements in the biotech field.

"It really is ironic," Stacy said Tuesday from his office at California State University-San Marcos. "When the country's sixth-largest city got ready to express a little salute to sundry people, two were SEMO graduates."

Caulder was out of town and could not be reached by telephone. But his wife, Carol, also a Southeast graduate, said the honors speak well for Southeast. "It shows that a lot of good people attended Southeast Missouri University," she said Tuesday.

The awards were presented by the San Diego Press Club Feb. 7. "Headliners" were honored in such categories as sports, art, business, government, humanitarian, law and justice, media, national security, politics, and science. Individuals are recognized for their special contributions or service in their individual fields.

The ceremony marked the first time Stacy and the Caulders had met, but they found plenty to talk about.

Stacy said: "Dr. Caulder graduated in the class of 1964, and I finished in 1960. We talked about some of the teachers we had, and checked up on some of the old tales."

Ironically, the Cape Girardeau connection at the San Diego awards dinner didn't stop with the recipients.

Cape Girardeau native Jane Hodges Young, who works with AT&T in the San Diego area, was a member of the press-club awards committee. And in the awards audience was Irving Applebaum and his wife, Cecelia "Teedy" Hecht Applebaum, sister of Martin Hecht of Cape.

The press club praised Stacy for his work in establishing the newest California state university at San Marcos. The former president of Southeast Missouri State University left his position in Cape Girardeau in 1988 to establish the university and to serve as its first president.

The San Marcos university accepted its first students this spring. "We were targeting a very small student body of 250 full-time equivalent, which would have been about 400 to 500 students," Stacy explained. "But we ended up with 410 full-time equivalent, which is a student body of 700."

In fact, the demand has been so great that the university has already closed its enrollment for the fall semester. In the fall, the university will have close to 1,500 students, which is 750 full-time equivalent.

"Everybody in the area said the demand was tremendous and that we'd grow to 25,000 students just as fast as we could build the buildings," he said. "I'm beginning to believe that more and more."

The liberal-arts university now has a faculty of 32, and will add 31 more by fall. Faculty recruitment is going quite well, he said, with 100 to 300 applications for every position. "People are excited about the prospect of working at a brand new university," he said.

None of the faculty so far is from Southeast. Stacy said: "I made a promise to the board of regents that I would not raid the Southeast faculty. They're really terrific (in Cape), but I'm trying to keep that promise."

The campus now operates from temporary quarters in a business park subdivision. Construction of the first seven buildings is under way, with completion scheduled for 1992, said Stacy.

"We're a demand-driven campus," he explained. "The nearest campus is San Diego. They topped out at more than 25,000 students, and they're under siege. San Diego is growing rapidly, with about 1,000 new residents every month," he said.

While one of 10 Americans lives in California, one of eight college students attends school in California, he said.

How fast the university grows may depend on the state's fiscal problems. Said Stacy: "California this year is facing what Missouri has been coping with for a number of years: a budget squeeze. The budget is so huge here that a fraction of a percent makes a big difference. California is looking at a $6 billion shortfall in the state budget this year. That may influence how fast we develop."

Stacy said the demand would probably swell the student population to 25,000 in 10 years, although he'd like to take the growth process a little slower.

While Stacy keeps busy in the education field, Caulder continues to make advances in the field of biotech. He serves as chairman of the board and president of Myocogen Inc., a company which specializes in biotech agricultural products.

Mrs. Caulder explained that the company specializes in pest control through genetic engineering.

The crops are treated with biodegradable products in tiny capsules, she explained. "When the bugs ingest the treated plant, their genetic makeup are altered so they can't survive," she said. "These products aren't chemicals. They won't affect human beings or the plants."

The company's most notable product targets the Colorado potato beetle, but Mrs. Caulder said biotech pest control certainly appears to be "the wave of the future."

She pointed out California was really the headquarters for biotech research, partially because the weather allows year-round farming.

The Caulders have lived in California the past 6 years. Mrs. Caulder works as employee-relations director for a mental health corporation. She works with developmentally disabled.

A native of Gideon, Mo., Jerry Caulder's parents, Charles and Bernice Caulder, still reside there. Mrs. Caulder is a native of St. Louis, where her mother still resides.