A FRIENDLY CAPE WELCOME TO NEW CVB DIRECTOR

Cape Girardeau has a new Convention and Visitors Bureau director who is arriving from Nashville with the experience of similar responsibilities in Danville and Alton, Ill. As she will be expected to do many times in the coming months, we welcome Terri Clark-Bauer to the City of Roses and wish her well as she guides the CVB toward its future goals.

We believe Clark-Bauer will find us to be friendly folks who take great pride in our community. But we are puzzled folks sometimes, because we too often fail to view tourism from anything except a Washington Monument-Mount Rushmore-Yellowstone National Park perspective.

Yet Cape Girardeau continues to attract more and more meetings and conventions that bring large numbers of visitors from all over Missouri to this part of the state.

And, yes, there is plenty to promote in the way of tourist attractions, but that effort could stand a lot of upgrading. In particular, we hope the CVB will pursue one excellent idea from the former its former director, Mary Miller: a full-blown Mississippi River museum devoted to the history, development and potential of the Father of all Rivers.