GAS STATION WORKERS LEND A HELPING HAND TO NEEDY COUPLE

Most likely, one service station seemed the same as the next to Mark and Janice as they turned onto the Cape Girardeau exit Wednesday to gas up on their way from Arkansas to Iowa.

They probably didn't feel the same way when they pulled back onto the highway after spending a tumultuous -- but ultimately rewarding -- afternoon at the Cape Citgo service station on Route K and Interstate 55.

Mark and Janice are no stranger to hard times. The California couple were in Arkansas when Mark suffered a heart attack and had to have an emergency by-pass.

The surgery scars were less than a week old when they left Arkansas to head to Mark's mother's in Iowa with very little money in their pockets.

As they neared Cape Girardeau, their Dodge camper was running low on gas. They would stop there and fill up.

After that, they would only have enough money to fill up once more. They knew that would never be enough to get to Iowa.

But they had to have gas. So, at about noon Wednesday, they pulled into off Interstate 55 and into the nearest gas station.

They wouldn't know until later how lucky they were to have picked this particular gas station.

Janice pumped $32 of fuel into the car while Mark rested in the camper. Her mind must have been on her worries; she had no idea she was pumping diesel fuel into their camper, which required unleaded.

She didn't even realize her mistake as she hung up the nozzle and went inside to pay.

Kim Culver, a clerk there, was pulling her normal eight to four when the short, red-haired lady in her mid-40s came in. Looking down at the computer pump reading, Culver saw it was for diesel fuel. She looked out at the camper and knew immediately that wasn't right.

Culver asked the lady if she was sure she had meant to put diesel fuel into the camper and Janice said she hadn't.

Janice went outside to get Mark, but neither knew what to do.

The employees at Citgo did.

Knowing it might hurt the camper to drive on diesel fuel, another Citgo clerk, Theresa Habeck, phoned area service stations to see if they could come and pump the fuel out.

The earliest anyone could get there was Friday. The couple had no money and no place to stay. Something would have to be done sooner.

The manager, Norma Habeck, sent the assistant manager, Mark Hornback, to buy a hand pump, paying for it herself.

After he got back, Hornback spent several hours of his afternoon pumping the gas out of the camper in the blistering summer heat.

While Hornback did that, some of the Citgo personnel began to talk to Mark and Janice, who shared their story. Mark showed them his surgery scars and Janet relayed her fear that they might never make it to Iowa.

The cogs began to turn in the minds of the employees. They'd have to do something about that.

After the diesel was extracted, the right kind of fuel was put in and Mark and Janice were ready to go.

That alone more than qualified as going above and beyond the call of duty for the service station personnel.

But these folks did more.

Several of the clerks and managers pooled $75 out of their own pockets to give to the couple to make sure they had enough money to get to Iowa.

"They were very grateful," said Norma Habeck. "She started crying and grabbed me. He told me: 'You must be Christians.' I told him we work at it."

The Citgo employees acted out of kindness and they all responded with similar reasons why: It just the right thing to do.

"People are supposed to help people, aren't they?" Habeck asked. "They were in a predicament and we didn't know what else to do.

"I know if one of my family was on the road and in trouble, I would want someone to help them."

No one knows Mark and Janice's last name. No one thought to ask.

"It didn't really matter what their name was, just that they needed help," said Culver. "We helped them because they needed it. It was just by the grace of God that it wasn't one of me or mine."

Habeck said: "People don't help each other nearly enough anymore. Isn't that what we're here for?"

Culver seems to sum up the feelings of everyone there as she smiled and added: "They say what goes around comes around."