The director of the Cape Girardeau County Archive Center knows her history.

She especially knows her trivia on explorers Merriwether Lewis and William Clark.

But it was her knowledge of a second language, French, that made Jane Randol Jackson the perfect candidate to speak at a conference in Canada next month.

Jackson, who taught French for 20 years in the Cape Girardeau school district, was picked to speak three times in a series of Lewis and Clark conferences Oct. 6 to 10 in Canada.

Two of Jackson's lectures will have to be in French. The third will be a video conference in English.

Jackson will visit the consul general in Quebec city and Montreal and will be the principal speaker in both those towns.

Her invitation originally came from an acquaintance Jackson made at a Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark symposium in St. Louis. Jackson met Denis Vaugeois, who is the editor of a French-speaking publishing company in Canada. He also was the publisher of a book about Lewis and Clark.

Vaugeois recalled Jackson when he approached the consul about holding a Lewis and Clark conference. The Canadian government contacted the U.S. Department of State, which contacted Jackson.

Jackson gladly accepted.

"I'm very excited," she said. "I just hope what I know is what they want to know."

Cape Girardeau County Clerk Rodney Miller said county officials are excited about the archive center, the people that work there and Jackson's invitation to speak.

"For another country to ask for one of our employees to speak in another language makes us proud," Miller said. "It just speaks to why the archive is so successful."

Lewis and Clark never ventured into Canada, Jackson said. But the explorers did hire some French Canadians to help handle boats.

Jackson, whose husband, Larry, also speaks fluent French, received a major in French at Southeast Missouri State University and a master's degree at Middlebury College in Vermont, a school known for teaching second languages. As part of her education there, she spent a year in Paris, which is where she learned the nuances of the language.

She first became interested in speaking French from her father, who served in World War II and was stationed in Belgium.

"When he retired and came back home, he would throw some French words out and I thought that was neat," she said.

Started in 1999

Her thirst for Lewis and Clark knowledge began in 1999 and hasn't been quenched since. She had been doing genealogy for many years and had discovered that her relatives, the Randol family, got a land grant in Cape Girardeau in 1797. Early in 1999, she realized that her relatives must have been in Cape Girardeau when the Corps of Discovery made a stop in 1803.

In August 1999, Jackson attended a meeting with high school history teacher Linda Nash and university professor Frank Nickell to discuss Lewis and Clark history with representatives of the Department of Natural Resources and the Missouri Department of Conservation. The government officials said they wanted to place interpretative signs where Merriwether Lewis and William Clark stopped as part of the national Lewis and Clark bicentennial commemoration.

After that meeting, Jackson, Nickell and Nash began a three-person quest to educate the residents in Southeast Missouri about the region's history as it pertains to Lewis and Clark.

Since then, Jackson and her husband have traveled all over the country -- from Virginia to Montana -- and has read numerous books, soaking up information about the expedition.

"I have a high respect for her," Nickell said. "She is certainly a significant person now in the preservation of the history of the county and the region. She has played a key role in the development of the archives, thus the development and interpretation of our history. She is the ideal person to speak about and study the whole Lewis and Clark episode with a very special relationship to Cape Girardeau. She, while in Canada, will be a representative of Cape Girardeau, the county, the state and the country, and she will be a very fine representative of all four."

November celebration

The planning for the local Lewis and Clark celebration, originally started by three people, has grown into an effort supported by more than 150. On Nov. 21, 22 and 23, Cape Girardeau will celebrate the anniversary of Lewis and Clark's visit to the Red House -- the common name for the home of Louis Lorimier, the city's founder -- and to Cape Rock, a location north of Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi River.

Thousands of dollars have been pledged and 4,500 man-hours have been donated to build a replica of the Red House, which will be turned into a permanent museum.

Organizers have secured a $79,000 transportation grant from the Missouri Department of Transportation, a $25,000 Lewis and Clark Bicentennial grant and about $40,000 in sales and donations.

Steve Strom, who is directing the building of the house, said the roof is finished and about 75 percent of the exterior is completed.

"We'll finish the exterior, then complete the porches and work on the windows and shutters," he said. "We will have it done in time for the celebration as long as our volunteers continue to show up as they have."

bmiller@semissourian.com

243-6635