SENIOR FUN FEST '95

Huff, Mastery of Mystery & Amusement

Saturday will be a great day to show your age in Cape Girardeau.

Anybody 55 or older is welcome to attend Senior Fun Fest '95, a free event that will offer Dixieland music, dancing to big band sounds of the '30s and '40s, a magic act, clowns, complimentary snacks, Bingo and exhibits.

Senior Fun Fest '95 will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Show Me Center.

The event has been held every other year since 1984 as a salute to the region's seniors. This year's theme is "Banner Day for Seniors."

Sponsored by Mercantile Bank of Cape girardeau, Schnucks, the Southeast Missouri Area Agency on Aging and Southeast Missouri Hospital, the event is expected to draw more than 3,000 seniors from all over the region.

Headlining Senior Fun Fest '95 will be the Jerry Ford Orchestra. Ford is a longtime bandleader on the Cape Girardeau music scene.

Also performing will be the Water Street Six, a Dixieland outfit from Cape Girardeau.

Magician Rob Huff, billed as the "Master of Mystery and Amusement," will make a number of appearances throughout the day. Huff was named the number one magician at the 1992 St. Louis International Brotherhood of Magicians' stage contest.

The idea behind Senior Fun Fest, held as part of Older Americans Month, is to say thanks to the community's seniors with a day of music, food, fun and fellowship, says Donna Gerard, a member of the steering committee.

As a seniors-only event, Senior Fest '95 is unique in the Cape Girardeau market, said Mary Miller, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

"It has a niche in that regard. There is nothing else that competes with it," she said.

The CVB will have a booth at the event this year for the first time.

The free tickets are available at the Area Agency on Aging, Mercantile Bank of Cape Girardeau, Schnucks, Del Farm, Southeast Missouri Hospital Doctors' Park Outreach Services and the Nutrition Center in Cape Girardeau.

In Jackson, tickets can be obtained at Southeast Missouri Hospital Jackson Outreach Services, Schaper's IGA Foodliner and the Jackson Senior Citizens Center.

Tickets also are available at R.C.'s Corner in Sedgewickville; Chandler Drug, Twin City Pharmacy and the Nutrition Center in Marble Hill; Security Bank of Bollinger County in Patton; and Mercantile Bank of Sikeston and the Senior Center in Sikeston.

In Perryville, tickets are at Herbst & Co. Jewelers and the Nutrition Center; in Chaffee at Medicap Pharmacy, Chaffee IGA and the Nutrition Center; and in Scott City at Baker's Bestway, Economy IGA, Medicap Pharmacy and the Nutrition Center.

For more information, phone the Southeast Missouri Hospital Marketing and Communications Department at 651-5533.