WALL OF FAME GETS NEW COLOR

The people spoke, and the Missouri Heritage Mural Association listened.

In response to complaints about colors chosen for the Missouri Wall of Fame mural on the Cape Girardeau floodwall, touches of dark green have been added, said J. Tim Blattner, the association president.

The Wall of Fame's pastel color scheme drew criticism from tourists, residents and some downtown merchants.

"Basically, it was such a big, ambitious project, and when we got it all spread out on the wall we decided maybe we wanted to try and fine-tune the color combination a little bit," Blattner said. "We put some new colors on there, and we'll look at them for a little bit. If we don't like them we'll try something else."

Blattner said the association acted in response to negative comments. He said, "We're just trying to come up with the best mural we can get."

While Cape Girardeau's newest mural is being improved, the city of Jackson is gearing up for its first mural. Judges will gather at 1 p.m. today at Jackson City Hall to pick the winner of the Jackson mural contest.

The Wall of Fame's new color scheme is a big improvement, say merchants in downtown Cape Girardeau.

"I'm a big fan of the mural," said Doc Cain of Port Cape Girardeau. "I think it's great. You can walk down that street and see crowds of people looking at it or cars driving by it slow. I like the added color as well. The green kind of softens it some."

"I drove by it this morning just to take a look at it because I'd heard they changed it," said Judith Ventrella of Judith Anne's. "It does definitely look better. It's more colorful now. I think it looked rather dull and faded and washed out before."

The mural, which features such famous Missourians as Walter Cronkite, Rush Limbaugh Jr., Calamity Jane and George Caleb Bingham, has been touted as one of Cape Girardeau's biggest tourist attractions.

The Wall of Fame and the other downtown murals draw a lot of tourists to the area, Cain said. "It's a great addition for us," he said. "All of the murals are nice."

"I've had a lot of the people come into the store and mention the murals and ask where they are," Ventrella said. "They do look for them."

The green has been added to the portraits of Mark Twain and Harry Truman and to highlight other sections of the mural.

The Wall of Fame mural covers a 500-foot section of the floodwall from Independence to Merriwether.

In Jackson, Herb Wickham, a local artist and chairman of the mural contest, said he expected some entries to come in today. The total number of entries could be as many as 24.

"It's a big thing," he said. "The idea is to unveil it at Homecomers" in August.

The winning entry will be reproduced in a 15-by-45-foot format on the north wall of the Clabaugh building in uptown Jackson. The mural will face the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse.

The Arts Council of Southeast Missouri is sponsoring the contest. It will award a $1,000 prize to the winning artist.

Contest guidelines suggested artists use Jackson's history for inspiration, and contestants followed that suggestion, said Bev Strohmeyer, executive director of the arts council.

She said most of the entries are composites using different well-known symbols of Jackson's history such as the courthouse; churches; industries, including Coca Cola; Homecomers; the Oliver House; agriculture; St. Louis Iron Mountain Railroad; and Andrew Jackson himself.

"One was more of a scene of old Uptown Jackson as it looked years ago," Strohmeyer said.

"You could tell that a lot of them had done a lot of research into the history of Jackson, she said.

Artists from Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Sikeston, Charleston and other communities in Southeast Missouri as well as Southern Illinois entered.

After the winner is picked, all of the entries will be displayed at Jackson City Hall and then at the Arts Council office in Cape Girardeau, Wickham said.

Jackson's first mural isn't even up yet, and Wickham is already scoping out suitable locations for more murals.

"I've looked all around over here for good walls," he said, adding he has spotted about three walls that would work fine.