STARS AND STRIPES MUSEUM HAS BRIGHT FUTURE

The Stars and Stripes Museum at tiny Bloomfield, Mo., is growing.

Groundbreaking recently was held for a 3,800-square-foot addition that will cost some $120,000.

The addition is part of a 10-year master plan that includes a museum complex, the Missouri Veterans Cemetery due to open in 2002 and a museum housing more than 500 pieces of antique agricultural equipment donated by Gene Rhodes of Cape Girardeau.

The museum and library, established in 1997, already is gaining a name for itself, even though few people outside Southeast Missouri are aware of it.

The museum's most precious possession is one of three existing copies of the first edition of Stars and Stripes, published in Bloomfield on Nov. 9, 1861. Overall, the collection is viewed as a historical chronicle of the U.S. art of war.

More than 200 people made donations to the museum last year, and that says a lot for the significance of a museum that honors journalists who have covered this nation's wars.

More financial assistance would be welcomed by the museum's backers. With future development, more and more people will learn about Bloomfield.