SEMO PLANS TO DEVELOP TRAILS ON RIVER CAMPUS

Southeast Missouri State University plans to develop hiking and biking trails on the tree-filled River Campus overlooking the Mississippi River.

Dr. Pauline Fox, vice president of administration and enrollment management, said the school is close to securing a grant from the state to construct the trails.

Fox said that project could proceed this spring even as the university's $36 million plan to turn a former Catholic seminary into a River Campus school for the visual and performing arts remains stalled by a lawsuit that has put the city's share of funding on hold.

Fox told the River Campus Board of Managers Friday that the trail project also could provide a place for the public to observe the construction of the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge that will replace the old, two-lane span linking Cape Girardeau with Southern Illinois.

The board met with River Campus benefactor B.W. Harrison of Cape Girardeau, whose $800,000 donation allowed the university to buy the former seminary.

Board member Swayne Byrd, a Charleston, Mo., architect, suggested the university tape interviews with Harrison concerning life at the former seminary and include the recollections in a new art and history museum that Southeast plans to build on the River Campus. Harrison lives in a brick home across the street from the seminary grounds.

Byrd said the museum should include space to display some of the history of the Vincentians, the Catholic order that developed the seminary in the 1840s.