The Small Business Development Center will conduct counseling sessions in three areas this month.

The counselor, Gil Degenhardt, will be available Jan. 26, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce office. The counseling sessions (about one hour) are free. Call 335-3312 for appointment.

He will conduct sessions at the Sikeston Chamber of Commerce Jan. 25 from 9 a.m. to noon. Appointments are available by calling 471-2498. He will hold sessions at the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning office in Perryville Jan. 27 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Appointments are available by calling 547-8357.

The Small Business Development Center represents a "Partnership for Economic Development" between Southeast Missouri State University, the U.S. Small Business Administration, local financial institutions, area utility companies and Southeast Missouri municipalities. The goal of the center is to stimulate diversity and growth in small-business by assisting new and existing businesses to become more productive and more profitable.

Total construction activity continues to rise in Missouri, reported the F.W. Dodge Division of McGraw-Hill, an authority on the construction market.

Total construction for November of 1993 was $386,613,000, up about 30 percent from the $297,490,000 figure of November a year ago. Overall construction for the first 11 months of the year was reported at $4.6 billion, from the $4.1 billion of a year ago.

Nonresidential construction in the state, which includes commercial, manufacturing and other buildings not designed for shelter was reported at $1.79 billion for the first 10 months, 38 percent above the $1.3 billion total for the same period a year ago. Residential construction in the state was at $2.1 billion for the year, an 8 percent increase over the $1.9 billion for the same period of 1992.

Nonbuilding construction, which includes streets, highways, bridges, river and harbor developments, airports and a few other projects, was reported at $702,680,000, down about 20 percent from last year's figures of $868,470,000.

The Missouri Department of Agriculture and the University of Missouri will conduct certification and recertification training and pesticide technician retraining this month in Cape Girardeau.

The training sessions will provide information on pesticide use, worker protection standards, endangered species protection and secondary containment regulations.

Certification training for unlicensed persons will be held Jan. 24 with recertification sessions for licensed certified applicators and retraining sessions for pesticide technicians Jan. 25.

Additional information is available by contacting the University of Missouri Extension Conference Office, Commercial Pesticide, 348 Hearnes Center, Columbia, Mo., 65211 or by calling Karen Powell or Dale Powers at (314) 882-2429.

Mercantile Bancorporation Inc., headquartered in St. Louis, announced recently that it has completed its merger with Metro Bancorporation, Inc., the $378 million-asset holding company for the Waterloo, Iowa Savings Bank. The bank will be renamed Mercantile Bank of Northern Iowa this spring.

Mercantile Bancorporation has assets of $10.3 billion, and owns 41 banks in Missouri, Northern Iowa, Eastern Kansas and Southern Illinois.

In August of 1993, Mercantile announced plans to expand its St. Louis presence by merging ;with $1.3 billion asset United Postal Bancorp., Inc., holding company for United Postal Savings Association. Mercantile's non-bank subsidiaries include companies providing brokerage services, asset-based lending, investment advisory services and credit life insurance.

TROY, Mich. - Kmart Corp., the nation's No. 2 retailer, plans to replace hundreds of its older discount stores with larger, more modern ones and close 187 of its 1,200 Waldenbooks stores.

No layoffs are planned, the company said Wednesday. It said that most of the employees affected will be transferred to other stores and that more jobs will be created.

Kmart had planned to refurbish 300 of its older discount stores but scrapped that idea when it found its big, new stores were much more successful against competitors like Wal-Mart, chairman Joseph Antonini said.

The retailer said it will relocate 650 stores, consolidate 75 stores with nearby locations and keep 75 already-closed stores shut.