A 9-year-old girl and a well-known Cape Girardeau artist are the winners of the city flag contest.

Samantha Roussel, a third-grader at Clippard Elementary and the daughter of Bill and Sue Roussel, and Jim Parker, the founder of the University Museum and local artist, submitted the winning flag designs for the children's and adults' city flags.

Both artists used well-known symbols of the city in their designs.

"I used the `three R's'," Roussel said: the river, Cape Rock and, of course, roses.

Parker used the Common Pleas courthouse and roses.

Parker said the courthouse has always been a symbol of Cape Girardeau to him, and the roses were a natural.

"I grew up when we had the `Mile of Roses,' way back in the year one," he said.

Parker went downtown to get an accurate view of the old courthouse and kept "running back and forth" sketching around the building.

"And of course, the police came up," he said.

He said he explained to officers that he was just trying to "get the windows right."

"So I borrowed a camera from a neighbor, and I kept going back until I got it right," Parker said.

"I thought, everybody's going to use the Mississippi River and the barges going up and down, so I used the courthouse," he said.

Roussel, who enjoys drawing and painting at home and at school, said she entered just to see if she could win.

"I'd be surprised if I did," she said. "I am surprised."

The children's flag will be displayed at local schools and other "kid-friendly" sites.

Roussel said it would be "real exciting" to see her winning flag flying at her school.

The adult entry, the "official" city flag, will be flown at city hall.

Roussel's mother said she entered her own design in the adult category, but it didn't make it to the finals.

The two artists signed the rights to their winning designs over to the city Friday.

More than 200 ballots were cast to choose the winning entries, said Melvin Gateley, who coordinated the contest. Voters chose from five adult and three children's entries.

After the designs are translated into finished flags, the flags will be unveiled around June 10, Gateley said.

The contest was sponsored by Vision 2000 and the Class of 2000.