VOTERS APPROVE BONDS TO BUILD SHOW ME CENTER

Cape Girardeau city voters overwhelmingly approved a $5 million bond issue in the April 1983 election.

The vote set the stage for eventual construction of the Show Me Center, which opened in 1987.

Voters approved the bond issue by almost a 3-to-1 margin.

The decision by Cape Girardeau voters paved the way for a later election in which voters approved a 3 percent motel tax and a 1 percent restaurant tax to help retire the bonds.

The bonds were just one part of the financing for the $13 million project. The balance of the funding ultimately came from the state.

The local bond issue required a two-thirds majority for passage. Some 73 percent of the voters who went to the polls supported the bond issue.

Nearly 8,800 Cape Girardeau residents -- well over half of the city's registered voters at the time -- cast ballots in the election despite a day-long rain.

The outcome thrilled city and university officials.

"I think it's a miracle in the 1980s for a city like Cape Girardeau to help the university like this," said then-Southeast president Bill W. Stacy.

Stacy and city officials said the bond issue would go a long way in helping to secure state funding for the project.

"I can go with some confidence that the local effort is the largest the people in Jefferson City have heard of relating to a college or university building," Stacy said. "I feel really good now about getting the funding."

Donald Strohmeyer was a councilman in 1980 and served on a committee that had pushed for the project.

Strohmeyer had been concerned that voters would reject the bond issue. Following the election, he said the vote "restored my faith in the voters of Cape Girardeau."

Voters approved local funding for the project even though the site for the building had yet to be determined. Location was a source of controversy before and well after the election.

On April 4, the day before the election, Drury Development Corp. offered to donate 30 acres of land west of Interstate 55 as a possible site for the proposed civic arena.

The Drury site proved to be just the latest in a number of potential sites considered by the university and the city.

At the time of the April election, other possible sites included a tract of land in the vicinity of Bertling and Sprigg streets owned by the Cape Girardeau Public School District and land known as the Westborough Mall site west of Kingshighway between Route K and Bloomfield Road.

Then mayor Howard C. Tooke said prior to the pivotal election that location was a legitimate issue "but we won't need the site unless we get the state money."

For both city and university officials, funding was the first priority. A key part of the funding plan was to secure state construction money.

Cape Girardeau's multipurpose building project was competing with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, which also was seeking to build a multipurpose facility.

Stacy said the key issue was whether Cape Girardeau would secure funding for an arena.

"It's not whether it's going to be on Bertling Street or North Main Street or New Madrid Street or Kingshighway," he said. "The issue is `will it be in Cape Girardeau?'"

Ultimately, the Show Me Center was built near Sprigg and New Madrid on the former site of the university farm.