VANDIVER AWARD TO MALDEN GROUP

The Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents awarded the first Vandiver Show Me State Award to Malden's Bootheel Education Center Advisory Committee.

The action came at the regents' meeting this week.

The new award is named for Willard Duncan Vandiver, who served as the school's fifth president.

Vandiver coined the state's "show me" nickname in 1899 while a member of Congress.

The award will be presented to the advisory group at Southeast's spring commencement ceremony on May 17 at the Show Me Center.

The group has helped make the Bootheel Education Center a success, said Don Dickerson, president of Southeast's Board of Regents.

"Those folks have raised well over $1 million in the last eight years," he said.

The most recent fund drive raised more than $250,000 for scholarships.

"They have taken that old Pepsi bottling plant and they have turned it into really a first-rate educational facility," Dickerson said.

"It started out operating almost on a shoestring," he said. "This committee has just taken the ball and run with it."