SOUTHEAST MAKES PLANS FOR THRUSDAY'S EARTH DAY

The Lorax, an imaginary creature from the mind of Dr. Seuss, may be the best spokesman for Earth Day.

In Dr. Seuss' popular book, the fuzzy creature stands up to a businessman who harvests trees to make sweaters, destroying the Lorax's habitat in the process.

Dr. Alan Temes, an associate professor of health and leisure at Southeast Missouri State University, knows the importance of teaching children about the environment. His last home was in a huge apartment complex in Toledo, Ohio, where he organized the children into a recycling club.

Now Temes is helping coordinate Earth Day activities at the university for the event's 25th anniversary.

Gaylord Nelson, former U.S. senator and governor of Wisconsin, helped launch this year's event. He founded Earth Day April 22, 1970, and spoke about its conception earlier this month at Academic Hall.

Southeast's observance will be Thursday at the University Center patio and Missouriana and Riverboat rooms. Organizers said the two-day-early observance will attract more people because more traffic goes through the university on weekdays than on Saturdays.

When Dr. Bill McKinney, assistant professor of philosophy, asked for student participation in Earth Day, he got it. McKinney teaches a course on environmental ethics at Southeast.

The course examines the medieval concept of universal hierarchy. It was God first, humans second and the rest of nature third. The concept still exists.

"So, are we to be stewards of the environment, its caretakers?" McKinney said. "Or do we run rampant all over the place? I think we're moving to a more holistic philosophy where we are connected to the rest of the world."

Temes and McKinney, along with students Melissa Gielow and Rob Hout, helped plan Thursday's activities. It begins with videos, including The Lorax, in the Riverboat and Missouriana rooms of University Center.

At noon, professors and students will read poetry about nature on the UC patio, and have a round-table discussion about the environment and economy.

Cape Girardeau's religious leaders will join for another round-table discussion at 2 p.m. on "Spirituality and the Environment." Temes invited Catholics, Baptists, Native Americans and others to participate.

At the same time in another part of University Center, students will bring aluminum cans for crushing. The individual and group that collects the most cans will win a prize, and the individual and group that crushes the most will win a prize.

Rob Hout, a political science major, said university students are getting into recycling. He and his two roommates have four waste cans in their home to divide trash. By dividing it right away instead of putting it all in one bag, they resist the temptation to simply tie the bag and put it in the dumpster.

He said the younger generation is even more ecology minded.

"When I was in grade school, my contribution to the environment was dropping things in the trash can instead of on the ground," Hout said. "Now kids know not to get tuna that doesn't have the dolphin picture on the can."

His friend Gieslow, a biology major, hopes this Earth Day will kick off a continuing effort to make Cape Girardeau more environmentally wise. She wants to head an organization that would be affiliated with the Student Environment Action Coalition.

"My career goal is to save the world," Gieslow said. "I don't want this new group to be just another campus activity. It should have a community impact."

One of her immediate goals is to eliminate non-biodegradable cups from the campus.

It's a start.