TWO NEW COMMISSIONERS TAKE SEATS ON PORT BOARD

SCOTT CITY -- Net tonnage handled by the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority last year was up 30 percent over 1993.

A report on tonnage was heard by two new Cape Girardeau County representatives on the port Board of Commissioners Monday.

The port's tonnage ended 1994 on a steady note with each of the last four months above 30,000 tons. The final figure for the year was 336,743 tons. That was 77,000 tons more than the 259,000 handled in 1993. It is almost five times as much as the 74,129 handled in 1992.

"It's going to be difficult to sustain this type of increase from year to year," said W.H. "Hence" Winchester, a Sikeston lawyer who took over as chairman of the port board last month. He said 1994's tonnage was a "substantial improvement" over 1993's amount.

Joining Winchester as new officers are vice chairman W. Kin Dillon of Cape Girardeau, secretary Irvin Garms of Cape Girardeau and treasurer Bill Bess of Sikeston.

Reappointed to a four-year term to the board was Morty Potashnick, a Sikeston businessman who has represented Scott County on the board since 1982.

A new four-year appointment to the board from Cape County is John M. Thompson, 41, president of Boatmen's Bank in Jackson. A native of Jackson, where he resides, Thompson graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in 1977 with a marketing degree.

Thompson has been active in his community. He is a Jackson Chamber of Commerce board member, president of the Jackson Industrial Development Co., coaches local sports and is on the administrative board of the New McKendree United Methodist Church. He and his wife, the former Teresa Hilton from Perryville, have three children, ages 9 to 14.

The other new commissioner is Cliff F. Rudesill of Cape Girardeau, who will serve through November to fill an unexpired term of Joe Gambill. Gambill resigned to begin his position as Cape County associate commissioner.

Rudesill, 70, retired in 1984, after 14 years as president of Riverside Home Centers with locations in Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Ste. Genevieve, Sikeston and Ironton. He was also president of Riverside Components on Nash Road and Riverside Land Companies, which built several subdivisions in the Cape Girardeau and Jackson areas.

Rudesill's civic activities include being a board member of the Cape Girardeau Industrial Development Authority. He is also a member of the Centenary United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau.

Rudesill is a past board member of the Greater Cape Girardeau Development Authority and past board chairman of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce and Hardware Wholesalers Inc. (HWI), with a warehouse on Nash Road. He and his wife, Ki, have been married 49 years and they have two children.

"I think there's tremendous potential at the port," Rudesill said. "It's been a struggle to build something there, but it's gradually making it."

Opening up the extension of Nash Road eastward from Interstate 55 will give the port a tremendous boost, Rudesill said, because it will give trucks direct access to the port. He said the new railroad and the potential for agricultural exports due to NAFTA means the port has a bright future.