STEPHENS RESIGNS MALL POST

Tony Stephens has resigned his position as manager of West Park Mall.

Stephens, who has been manager at the Cape Girardeau shopping mall since April 1991, was only the fourth manager of the mall since it opened more than a dozen years ago.

Stephens, who will leave the mall, owned by CenterMark Properties Inc. of St. Louis, April 15, has accepted a position as manager of two properties in the central Illinois area.

"I'll be responsible for a shopping mall and retail strip in the Danville and Champaign, Ill., areas," said Stephens. "I hate to leave this area. I've been here 13 years, but this is a great opportunity for me."

A Cape Girardeau resident since 1981, Stephens has been around the mall since then. "I was one of the original tenants here 10 years ago," he said.

He owned and operated Naturalizer Shoes at the mall from 1981 to 1988. During part of that time he also owned two other stores in the mall.

He subsequently served as publisher and general manager of the former News Guardian newspaper here prior to returning to the mall as a retail coordinator, a position he held six months before being promoted to manager.

Prior to moving to Cape Girardeau, Stephens worked for nine years in Illinois and Michigan as a sales and retail manager in the shoe business.