Carl Ben Bidewell of Poplar Bluff, whose term on the Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents expired recently, has been named development liaison for the Harry L. Crisp Bootheel Education Center in Malden.

The development liaison is responsible for attracting resources for the Bootheel Education Center, said Robert Foster, executive director of the Southeast Missouri University Foundation.

Foster said the new position offers "an opportunity to enhance the great success that the Crisp Bootheel Education Center is experiencing" and will allow Bidewell to continue his ties with Southeast.

"He has had a longtime interest in the university and a particular interest in the BEC," Foster added.

The Crisp Center provides classroom and administrative facilities for a consortium established in 1981 by Southeast, Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff, University of Missouri Extension, and four area vocational schools. The consortium was formed to provide post-secondary education opportunities to residents of the Missouri Bootheel.

"The Crisp Bootheel Education Center has been a project close to Ben's heart during his six years on the Board of Regents," said Kala Stroup, president of Southeast. "He has worked extremely hard as a proponent of and fund-raiser for the Crisp Center, and will do very well in this position."

For the past two years, Bidewell has worked with the Crisp Center Advisory Committee, which is the fund-raising arm of the center. In his new position, Bidewell will continue that work in an official capacity with the foundation.

His term as president of the Board of Regents ended in February. He was appointed by former Missouri governor John Ashcroft to a six-year term and assumed office in April 1986. Bidewell was elected board president in May 1991 and served in that capacity until his term expired.

He is a former varsity athlete at Southeast and has been an unwavering supporter of the move of the institution's intercollegiate athletic program to NCAA Division I and the Ohio Valley Conference, a move which was accomplished during his term as a regent.

"I am very interested in development at the Bootheel Education Center in Malden," Bidewell said, adding that working with the center is "sort of a hobby."

The Crisp Bootheel Education Center was a longtime dream of Bidewell's late friend, John Howell of Malden, Bidewell said. Howell spearheaded the initial fund-raising efforts for the center.

"He and I worked in conjunction with the development of the Bootheel Education Center," Bidewell said. "I'm trying to carry on what he started."