Seeds to grow by

Students begin streaming into the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center at 7 o'clock most mornings and keep the campus busy until 10 p.m. The CTC is training students to become skilled workers and is creating well-qualified applicants for the area's available jobs. In the process, the CTC is upgrading the workforce.

Last week, AmerenUE's Community Development Corp. gave the Cape Girardeau Schools Foundation a $150,000 grant meant to help the CTU raise the $1.5 million needed to build an electrical shop and classroom on the campus. The workshop would expand the center's electrical trades classes

The development corporation also awarded a grant of $200,000 to Missouri Research Corp. for the purpose of developing a business incubator at Southeast Missouri State University's Innovation Center and gave another $200,000 grant to the SEMO Port Authority. The latter will help the port build a public warehouse.

AmerenUE's Community Development Corp. has dispensed $5.5 million over the past three years. It was founded in 2002 in the settlement of a rate case between AmerenUE and the Missouri Public Service Commission.

These are seeds to grow by.