UNIVERSITY TO CONSTRUCT FOUNTAIN

Cape Girardeau isn't Boulder, Colo., but it soon will have some prominent boulders of its own.

Southeast Missouri State University has begun construction of a $60,000 fountain in front of Kent Library. The fountain will feature a waterfall punctuated with a number of limestone boulders.

Former university president Dr. Kala Stroup proposed the project shortly before she left in August 1995 to take a job as Missouri's commissioner of higher education.

She and her husband, Joe, donated $37,000 to the project, and the university plans to spend an additional $23,000.

University construction crews are doing the work. Al Stoverink, the school's facilities management director, said the project could well end up costing less than $60,000.

Southeast puts $9,000 a year into its beautification budget. "We have been saving that up for the last several years," Stoverink said. "We've got about $42,000 saved up in that account right now."

The university's funding for the fountain project will come from that account, he said.

The waterfall and reflection pool will be built in an area that once included a flower bed.

Demolition work started in mid-June. Project manager Tom Hadler of the facilities management department said the fountain should be completed by November.

Landscaping work will begin in the fall and should be completed by next spring, Hadler said. The landscaping is being designed by three students who initially offered their ideas as a class project. The students worked under the direction of landscape architect Paul Klaus.

Art professor Ron Clayton said Stroup chose him to design the fountain.

He said Stroup pitched the project to him about three months before she left Southeast.

"She indicated that she didn't want a traditional, shooting-up-in-the-air kind of fountain," Clayton said. "She wanted something that suggested a natural waterfall."

What Clayton has designed is a reflection pool with water cascading over rocks.

The design features concrete and polished stone, with a waterfall more than 5 feet high plunging over eroding limestone boulders into a lower pool.

Clayton said the university has purchased 20 boulders from a Perryville stone company and more may be bought.

Clayton said his artwork always has involved a reconciliation between nature and the man-made world, explaining that the design has undergone several revisions.

Hadler has assisted him in drawing up the plans. "Tom is a very able designer in his own right," said Clayton, who has taught for 10 years at Southeast.

He said one goal of the project is to provide an area for students.

Some people may think the project is a waste of money, Clayton said, adding that "there will always be people who are more interested in the bottom line."

To them he said his art enriches people's lives, and to that end, it is part of the university's mission.

"It is difficult to put a monetary value on that type of enrichment," Clayton said.

Ironically, he won't be around to witness all the construction work on the fountain because he will spend the fall semester as an artist-in-residence at Kunsan National University in South Korea. He won't get to see the finished fountain until he returns home in December.