WOMEN JUDGES MAKE HISTORY

Cape Girardeau will be host to a bit of legal history today.

Three women who are state appeals court judges will hold court here, the first time for an all-woman panel of judges in Missouri.

Kathianne Knaup Crane, chief judge of the Court of Appeals Eastern District in St. Louis, along with Mary Rhodes Russell and Mary Kathryn Hoff will hold court this morning in the Common Pleas Courthouse. They will hear oral arguments in five cases. A second three-judge panel -- this time all men -- will hear arguments in six more cases later in the morning.

The all-woman panel demonstrates another step in women's advancement in the legal profession. Of the 14 judges in the Eastern District, only three are women. That's more women judges than either of the other two state appellate courts. Crane, who has been on the court since 1990, was the first woman to serve as chief judge of an appeals court in Missouri. Russell was named to the court last summer, and Hoff joined the appeals court in January.

Cape Girardeau's own Stanley Grimm, also an appeal's court judge, had a hand in arranging this legal milestone in Cape Girardeau. He says the all-woman panel of judges is a sign of the growing number of women who are lawyers.

No doubt these judges look forward to the day when women on the court are no longer uncommon enough to be newsworthy.