TUPELO, MISS., ADOPTS CAPE'S FLOOD VICTIMS WITH TRUCKLOAD OF AID

TUPELO, Miss. Sha Brooks' grandparents first met in Zickfield's jewelry store in downtown Cape Girardeau. She was buying a bracelet for her beau. The young man convinced her to go out with him that night instead.

Brooks didn't know she had a personal connection with Cape Girardeau until after she had settled on it as the beneficiary of Tupelo's flood relief largess.

A customer relations manager for Cellular One in Northeast Mississippi, Brooks has spearheaded Tupelo Flood Relief '93, a drive that has gotten the city's Jaycees, churches, schools and other civic organizations involved in helping Cape Girardeau's flood victims.

Recently, the mayor of Tupelo signed a proclamation "adopting" Cape Girardeau, and Brooks convinced the Lee County Board of Supervisors to adopt Cape Girardeau County as well.

The idea has caught on. She has been interviewed by every newspaper, television station and radio station in the area, and on Monday afternoon had just finished a radio talk show appearance.

"It has gotten to the point that people are calling us," she said.

It probably hasn't hurt that the Tupelo Daily Journal misreported that 60 percent of Cape Girardeau's residents have left their homes and businesses.

Goods have been collected in bins set up at four retail locations around the town. Meanwhile, every school in Lee County, which has a population of 65,000, is participating in a contest to collect the most items for flood victims. The winning class will receive a pizza party.

On Monday, a 40-foot eighteen-wheeler loaded with food, toiletry items and building supplies left Tupelo bound for the Heartland Cares Distribution Center in Cape Girardeau.

The truck also is carrying furniture from the city that claims to be "the furniture capital of the world" (Tupelo also is Elvis' birthplace). The furniture will be dropped off in St. Louis because the distribution center has no room for it.

Brooks said she expects the bulk of the aid to follow after this weekend, when the contest between the schools closes. Trucking students from Tupelo's junior college will be behind the wheel of that shipment.

All this came about because Brooks wanted to do something to help, and was aware that much of the national attention had been given the flooding along the Upper Mississippi.

She began calling cities south of St. Louis.

"Originally we were going to do Ste. Genevieve," she said, "but the response wasn't so positive. They said, `Send cash.'"

Brooks liked the welcome at the Heartland Cares Distribution Center. "They said, `If you can send three cans of food, that's more than we had.'"

She confesses that she procrastinated about getting the drive under way at first. "I thought, This isn't going to work." Then she went to the Jaycees and the mayor, all of whom were enthusiastic.

Jaycees in Cape Girardeau have been helping to coordinate the effort on the other end.

Cape Girardeau was chosen at least partly because of the similarities between the two cities, Brooks said. They are approximately the same size, and both are regional retail hubs surrounded by small towns.

She also has discovered that the two cities' urologists share the same mobile machine used to break up kidney stones.

On Monday, Brooks found out that Cape Girardeau is near her great-aunts Elsie Phillips and Merle Carter in Oran and great-aunt Erlene Davenport in Chaffee.

"It's kind of weird," she said.

If she only knew that Elvis once sang in Cape Girardeau.