WEED AND SEED FUNDING RESTORED

Weed and Seed will regain its funding in Southeast Missouri now that a new executive director has been hired.

Lisa Lane of Sikeston was selected Wednesday to head the regional Weed and Seed effort.

Michael W. Reap, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, made the announcement in a press release Wednesday afternoon.

The regional program saw its $750,000 funding revoked earlier this year because it had no executive director and had unauthorized budget adjustments, inappropriate expenditures and insufficient details about community projects.

Weed and Seed is a national program funded through the U.S. Justice Department that aims to weed out violent crime, drug use and gang activity, and fund other community activities in targeted neighborhoods. In Southeast Missouri it incorporates five cities for a single project. The cities are Cape Girardeau, Caruthersville, Charleston, Poplar Bluff and Sikeston.

Lane, 31, works as community liaison officer for the Sikeston Department of Public Safety as part of the COPS team, which began as a Weed and Seed grant program. Her final salary and starting date are still being worked out. Lane hopes to be at work by Oct. 15.

Members of the regional Weed and Seed board unanimously chose Lane to head the project. Nearly 25 people applied for the job, and the board selected seven to interview. From those seven, three names were taken to the full board for a vote.

Lane is familiar with Weed and Seed because of her job in Sikeston but also because she grew up in the Sunset area, which is part of the targeted neighborhood in the city.

"I remember praying to God asking to grow up and make a difference," Lane said. "I grew up in the Sunset-Clayton addition of the city and know what it's like to want and need the assistance of different programs."

Lane said she knows how important Weed and Seed can be in making a difference for youths in targeted neighborhoods. "People pushed me in the right direction and didn't let the bad parts suck me in," she said.

Lane, who has also worked as a supervisor and assistant administrator for the Cape Girardeau County Juvenile Detention Center, knows that other youths aren't as lucky as she was.

Programs like Weed and Seed help develop drug-free activities and strategies to help neighborhood residents, she said.

Lane doesn't see herself having to catch up or change the course of the group's efforts. The regional board and interim director have kept it focused, she said.

Now that an executive director has been hired, Weed and Seed should receive its funding again. But how much of the grant will be returned is yet to be determined, said Ron Skaggs, law enforcement coordinator for the U.S. attorney's office in St. Louis. Skaggs had been working as interim director since May after Calvin Bird resigned.

Hiring an executive director was the final stipulation for funding, Reap said.