SUCCESS IN JACKSON

Jackson, a community situated in the heart of Cape Girardeau County, is the second fastest growing Missouri city between St. Louis and the Arkansas border. The 1990 census marked Jackson at 9,200 persons. Just four years later, the estimated population has surpassed 11,000. By the year 2000, projections indicate Jackson's population could top 14,000.

Most of the growth can be attributed to the city's reputation as an excellent place to raise a family: excellent school system and well-preserved existing housing to complement new housing development. But city officials also know well the importance of attracting new commercial development and nurturing existing businesses.

This year, the city will issue about 120 single-family home permits, which outstrips new homes in its larger neighbor, Cape Girardeau.

The city also has expanded to the south with the annexation last summer of Grandview Acres. Thanks to a one-half-cent transportation tax that voters approved 1986, the city's street system rivals any for a town its size. All new developments demand paved streets, and all streets are curbed and guttered.

Despite the positive news, Jackson officials recently learned the city was in danger of losing the Lee-Rowan Co. plant and its jobs. Lee-Rowan officials decided to consolidate its plants, but local officials didn't know where the single manufacturing plant would be -- here or in Tennessee. With its 1,350 employees, Lee-Rowan is the largest employer in Cape Girardeau County. A producer of wire organizing equipment, it was sold by owner Desmond Lee to the Newell Co. in September 1993. In Lee-Rowan's 30 years of business in Jackson, it has expanded 10 times. The expansions were welcomed, but the land-locked Jackson site provided limited space for further growth, while a Tennessee plant has an enormous amount of land and parking.

That prompted Mayor Paul Sander and Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association, to organize a group of officials, who set out to keep the factory here. The group was able to purchase adjoining property from landowner Byron Lang. An option on an additional tract will enable the city to acquire property for further Lee-Rowan expansion.

The city, with Robinson's help, also was able to get Missouri Department of Economic Development money for Lee-Rowan. The company received assistance with utilities and other expenses. In short, Lee-Rowan won't be headed south any time soon, thanks to the cooperative effort of local officials. But it is impossible to overlook the role the community's quality of life -- its homes, churches, shops and, perhaps most important, its people -- played in keeping the company here.