CAPE IS THE SCENE OF BUSTLING ACTIVITY FOR A SPRING WEEKEND

Spectacular spring, huh?

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Who can remember a weekend when our community was host to so many entertaining and informative events as now? For sports buffs who didn't want to go cycling or play their own game of softball in the spectacular weather, there was Friday's and Saturday's SeMotion Relays. Hundreds of athletes from Division I and II schools across the country are in town, staying in motel rooms, shopping, and eating in our restaurants. These track and field standouts are bumping up against the many competitors visiting our town for Universal Physique's 1991 Ozark Bodybuilding Championships.

Some truly outstanding names in American academia have journeyed to our town for the annual Missouri History Conference, held at the Holiday Inn this weekend. Then there's the annual exotic animal auction at the 5-H Ranch, which draws hundreds more from far-flung parts.

The Arena Building was where several hundred folks packed in last evening to raise thousands for cancer research at the fifth annual Cape Girardeau Cancer Gala. And huge crowds were showing up Friday evening and Saturday for the annual Southeast Missouri Homebuilders Association Home and Garden Show at the Show me Center. This one continues from noon till 5 p.m. today, and if you didn't get up to see the exhibits Friday or Saturday, it's worth your time.

Then there are plaudits to be handed out to the First Presbyterian Church, who combined with Vision 2000 to beautify a downtown corner lot. Many of these folks were at work Saturday planting beautiful growing things in the vacant lot at the corner of Broadway hill and Spanish.

Driving from event to event Saturday, the most popular pastime for the warm, sunny spring day seemed to be gardening and working in the yard. Most of us who participated in the Missouri Department of Natural Resources newspaper recycling program picked up our maple, hackberry or ash trees Friday, and more did so on Saturday. But if you haven't yet gotten your trees, you can still do so at the shed on the south side of the Arena Building from noon till 6 p.m. today.

With the great weather, I'm sure most took advantage of the chance to plant their new trees. That means that before much longer, there should be 1680 more trees growing in our area than there were a few days ago. And Saturday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch says that a state inititive has resulted in the planting of an amazing one million trees around Missouri in the last year, with another 650,000 to be planted along roadsides and highways in the coming year.

All this serves to reemphasize that trees and the timber they produce are a renewable resource, one that can and should be managed and harvested periodically. The following letter to the editor I spotted in the Southern Illinoisan recently has some memorable points to make as we ponder our economic and resource needs. It was written by a man who makes his living in the forest products industry. He reminds us there's a real cost to be paid for unchecked environmental zealotry.