EAST CAPE GIRARDEAU -- It didn't start out be a particularly exciting Sunday for Bud Pearce. The high point on the day's schedule was an afternoon trip with his wife, Bobbie, to watch the Christmas tree lights being turned on.

But once there, he learned that Sunday was Clyde "Bud" Pearce Jr. Day, an event attended by well over a hundred of his longtime friends and acquaintances.

"It's heartwarming to see all you folks and friends," the surprised 72-year-old Pearce told the assemblage after receiving plaudits from former U.S. Rep. Ken Gray, former State Sen. Clyde Choate, Union County Commissioner Leroy Rendleman and East Cape Girardeau Mayor Joe Aden.

Pearce's Purple Crackle night club has been East Cape Girardeau's most reliable and highest-profile business since it was established in 1946. The "Crackle" has survived both fires that destroyed the building in 1982 and 1984, and changes in clientele that transformed it from an elite supper club in the 1950s and 1960s into the current late-night bar and weekend rock emporium run by Pearce's son David.

On his birthday in November, Pearce told the crowd, "I said God let me live to 72 so I could pay all my debts.

"I think now maybe that wasn't right. Maybe he left me around here to see this day."

It was primarily Aden's idea to celebrate the role Pearce has played in the community and the lives of its inhabitants. He said the impetus was the death of a mutual friend during the past year.

"I decided, `Let's honor Bud Pearce for what he has done now,'" said Aden, mayor of the community for the past 15 years.

"He has done so much for the people of Southern Illinois. He's always there when you need him."

Without Pearce, Aden said, the 550-person town would not be incorporated, would not have a water system and would not be getting the sewer grant now in the works.

"Your visions and dreams have touched many lives," Aden told Pearce.

Aden awarded Pearce a plaque, and gave him an album filled with pictures of the goats Pearce raises on his nearby farm.

Standing on the bandstand, surrounded by so many of his friends dressed in suits and finery for the occasion, Pearce said it felt as if the club had gone back in time to the era when the Jack Staulcup Orchestra held forth from the stage.

"It makes me think of the old Purple Crackle days," he said.

Later, Pearce, who is in excellent health, confirmed that he was taken completely by surprise by Bud Pearce Day.

"I just really appreciate it," he said.