YELL DAY TUESDAY IN AREA

"YELL day is so much fun. It's 200 people standing on street corners in Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City selling papers the old-fashioned way -- they hawk them," Kim McDowell, YELL coordinator for the Southeast Missourian, said.

YELL, or Youth Education Literacy and Learning, is in its sixth year of raising funds for literacy programs in Southeast Missouri. It is a local community project created in cooperation between the Southeast Missourian newspaper, the United Way and local businesses.

What that all works out to be is a 32-page special publication that can only be bought Tuesday. And with the exception of about 25 issues that will be available at the Southeast Missourian office, all 10,000 papers will be sold by volunteers on street corners between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m.

"The volunteers have so much fun selling the papers," McDowell, who has been a committee member on the YELL project since the program's inception, said. "And the buyers get a kick out of rolling down their windows and presenting their $2 to buy a paper."

With the exception of the first two years, 10,000 YELL papers have been printed each year. McDowell said every YELL edition has sold out within the three hours of the Tuesday morning's sale.

The YELL papers are more than just articles about area uses of YELL grant monies and literacy programs, McDowell said. Inside each YELL edition is a special comic book, coupons that cannot be found in any other publication, prize offers and a special contest.

"The winner of the contest can win a five-night cruise on the Delta Queen steamboat," McDowell said. "The answer to the contest's three questions can only be found in YELL."

This year's YELL program chairman, Frank Ellis, first heard of the program a few years ago when he was a teacher. After learning what YELL was for, he made it a point to buy four papers that year in support.

"There are a lot of people in the community like that," he said. "The people in this community are wonderful. They really do support this campaign."

Ellis said YELL is about getting children to read.

"This basically addresses a need; A need for people to read," he said. "And we feel that reading at an early age is vitally important. So YELL is involved in the funding of certain programs to help children become better readers."

Taking on such a daunting task of becoming YELL chairman could have intimidated Ellis. But instead, he said, he had fun.

"I was very smart," Ellis said. "I listened to the people who had been leaders before -- and I did a lot of delegating. I really enjoyed it."

He said his main concern as chairman was to locate the most productive corners in the three cities that would enable YELL to reach the most people.

The Southeast Missourian donates the cost and labor of producing the YELL issues. Advertising money raised for the special paper is donated to the Southeast Missourian's Newspapers In Education Program, which supplies newspapers to school classrooms in Cape Girardeau, Scott City and Jackson. The money raised by the sale of the YELL papers is divided equally between Newspapers in Education and the United Way, which uses the funds for literacy grant programs.

Captains from each of the approximately 105 groups selling the paper meet at the Southeast Missourian at 5:30 a.m. to collect their YELL editions.

Harold Tilley, who has been a volunteer YELL distributor for five years, said hawking YELL on the corner of Broadway and S. West End Boulevard is more than just fun, it's a chance to give something back.

"I think a person should put a little back into the community," Tilley said. "Volunteering is a way to do that."

Tilley has been working with Vision 2000 on the corner near one of the entrances to Capaha Park. On YELL day he sees a lot of his friends going to work, hears some good natured teasing about his volunteer cap and apron, and has on occasion had to watch his back.

"It gets pretty hectic sometimes," he said. "Most people understand and they don't hesitate to buy a paper. But sometimes, if someone is in a real rush to get to work, they can get a little agitated. So you have to watch out. You might get run over."