VALENTINE MARRIAGES POPULAR; IS IT ONLY SO HUSBANDS CAN REMEMBER?

Valentine's Day and marriages seem a perennial combination, and Janet Robert thinks she might know why.

Robert, Cape Girardeau County's recorder of deeds for 15 years, suspects a Valentine's Day marriage might help a husband to remember his wedding anniversary.

"I guess I shouldn't pick out the male," she said, "(but) they generally seem to have the most problem remembering. I don't see how you could forget, myself."

Today is Valentine's Day. Each year, Robert said, the Cape Girardeau County Recorder of Deeds office issues marriage licenses to people who plan to marry on the holiday.

This year, though, even more people than normal got licenses for Valentine's Day marriages, probably because the holiday falls on Friday, she said.

Robert estimated 10 couples applied for marriage licenses this year, which she said is a typical amount when the holiday falls at the end of the week. On years when Valentine's Day falls in the middle of the week, she said, that number is probably off by about three or four.

One elderly couple applied this week at the office for a license to be married on Valentine's Day, Robert said.

"They're like in their 70s and neither one of them have been married before," she said. Robert said the couple lives in another county south of Cape Girardeau.

A marriage license can be obtained in any county for a marriage anywhere in Missouri, she said.

Robert said she believes most couples plan to be married on the holiday. "They think it's a little more special, a little more romantic, I guess."

Because there is a three-day waiting period before a license can be issued, Robert said, workers at the office generally ask a couple when they plan to marry.

One couple who plans to be married today is Rhonda Pobst and Vince Bixler, both of Cape Girardeau. A wedding in Las Vegas, Nev., is scheduled tonight.

"I have a red wedding dress and Vince has a tie with red hearts on it," Pobst, a hairdresser, said Wednesday, a day before the couple planned a plane trip to the casino-filled city. "We're just going to dress up for Valentine's Day."

But Bixler, a 36-year-old machinist, said he and Pobst, 30, hadn't planned to be married on Valentine's Day.

"It just worked out to be that way," he said, adding that the couple had available to them a special rate on the trip.

Pobst said the couple picked Las Vegas for the wedding because neither of them had ever been to the city. She credited Bixler with coming up with the idea, though.

A cousin of Pobst's, Janet Forbish (Williams), formerly of Olive Branch, Ill., and her husband, will stand up for the couple. Each manages a casino, said Pobst.

Another Cape Girardeau couple, Paul and Alline Scherer, celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary today. The couple's five children and grandchildren have planned a celebration for the couple Saturday at St. Vincent De Paul Church at 741 Forest. The couple said a church service, dinner and dance are scheduled.

Paul Scherer, 71, said he also thought the couple's wedding just worked out to be on Valentine's Day, a Saturday that Alline Scherer, 68, recalled was so warm that the couple didn't have to wear coats.

"I knew I was going to go into the service not long after that, so that might have been one of the reasons," said Paul Scherer, a World War II veteran who served with the Army Air Corps in Europe. "If the 13th had been on a Saturday, we might" have married then.

Nevertheless, Alline Scherer said if she could be married again, she'd definitely pick Valentine's Day for the occasion. Her husband, in jest, responded, "Please, I hope not."

She thinks it's was one of the nicest anniversary days out of the whole year.

"I think it symbolizes love as far as I'm concerned. ... People send flowers to their sweethearts and wives," she said.

"You hinting?" her husband replied.