SOUTHEAST REGENT DEMPSTER TO RESIGN AFTER SUFFERING STROKE

Lynn Dempster has resigned from the Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents after suffering a slight stroke.

The Sikeston businesswoman, who has been an enthusiastic backer of the university for years, submitted her letter of resignation to Gov. Mel Carnahan Feb. 7. University officials disclosed the resignation Monday.

"This is the hardest thing I have had to do in my life," Dempster said. "I have never walked away from anything."

She also stepped down from the university's presidential search committee. She co-chaired the search committee along with Donald Harrison, Board of Regents president.

Harrison said Regent Don Dickerson of Cape Girardeau will replace Dempster on the search committee.

The school is in the process of hiring a new president to replace Dr. Kala Stroup, who resigned last summer to become Missouri's commissioner of higher education. Dr. Bill Atchley is serving as president in the interim.

Atchley said: "This is a great loss for Southeast. Mrs. Dempster has always had a great love for the university and its students. I know that this love has guided her decision."

Dempster served on the board since March 1991. She was elected vice president of the board in 1993.

Dempster was in the fifth year of her six-year term, which was set to expire Jan. 1, 1997.

Carnahan will appoint someone to fill the unexpired term. A spokesman for the governor said whomever is named could be appointed to a full term next year.

Dempster has asked the governor to act quickly to fill the vacancy. "We need a replacement right now," she said.

Dempster suffered a stroke Jan. 29 after attending a campus meeting of the search committee. She spent a week in the Missouri Delta Medical Center at Sikeston before returning home to recuperate.

Dempster said she didn't want to continue as a regent if she couldn't be active on the board.

"I have never been able to do my life in half measure, and I am not going to start now," she said. "I have really loved having the opportunity of serving this great school, but my doctors have told me I must take time to smell the roses and slow down the professional involvement in my life."

Dickerson said Dempster has been dedicated to the university. "I think she always understood, having lived in this area so long, just how vitally important the university is to this whole area," he said.

Harrison said Dempster was a "diligent regent" and strong supporter of the school's nursing program.

Dempster and her husband, Robert, contributed nearly $2 million to the institution over the past 15 years. A retired lawyer, Robert Dempster died last March at the age of 82.