TINY TOWN FINDS NAME IN THE NEWS

WHITEWATER -- For a village that doesn't find itself in the news too often, folks in this tiny farming community are finally getting used to seeing their namesake in the headlines.

That wasn't the case at first. "When I first saw it, I said, `Wow, Whitewater's in the news," said 15-year-old Susan Dunning.

Even village trustee and former mayor Sharon Hale was fooled at first. "It's odd to turn on the news and hear Whitewater. You think it's your town, you think you've made it big. Then you have to realize they're not talking about us."

What people are talking about, of course, is a failed Arkansas land deal that cost Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton money when they resided in that state ... and costs them grief now that they reside in the White House.

The Clintons and their partners invested in Whitewater Estates, a planned 230-acre retirement and vacation community in Arkansas. A federal grand jury is now investigating the real estate deal surrounding Whitewater and the now-failed Madison Guarantee Savings and Loan in Little Rock, Ark.

Whitewater, Mo., is a village about 17 miles west of Cape Girardeau.

"I guess people are a little amused because of the name," admits Melvin Pope, who owns the town's only store -- Whitewater Grocery Store -- located just across from the vacant Whitewater Town Park, which sits next to the Whitewater Post Office, within spitting distance of the Whitewater Fire Department.

The village, incorporated in 1898 and now home to 130 people, boasts two churches, in addition to Pope's neighborhood convenience place and makeshift gas station, a boat repair shop and Whitewater's largest employer, Jackson-based Coop Service Center, which employs six residents.

The town's only Bank of Whitewater met a similar fate as the Whitewater land deal, collapsing in the 1930s, said Mayor Doyle Eakins. It was later transformed into a tavern before the building was torn down about 10 years ago.

"I think this whole thing has been blown out of proportion. I think it's propaganda," Eakins said of the Whitewater affair.

According to Pope, residents' chief concern is over farming conditions and fishing. "I want to know when the fishing's going to be good ... whether there'll be a flood next year. These are the things we worry about.

"We all sort of live in our own world out here and I don't think people are too interested in that whole affair," Pope concluded.

Raymond Rhodes, a 77-year-old retired farmer, is a little more blunt about it. "I don't pay attention to that crap anymore."

Unfortunately for the Clintons, others are.