RUST COMMENTARY; CITY OF ROSES MUSIC FESTIVALL WILL FEATURE 78 MUSICAL GROUPS

The Southeast Missouri MUSIC AWARDS banquet kicked off a big week for music in Cape. Last Friday night's banquet recognized 14 individuals or groups who were voted outstanding in their categories (as reported in our Saturday newspaper) and the first-ever tie for the lifetime achievement award.

"FRECK" SHIVELBINE for his many years association with the music community in Southeast Missouri primarily through SHIVELBINE'S MUSIC STORE ... (a treasure for musicians in the area) was one of the winners.

HOMER GILBERT ... a trumpet player who performed 72 years with the Municipal Band, teacher of many students, 14 year member of PEG MEYER'S ORCHESTRA, was the other.

* * * * *

The Music Festival: At 15 locations this Friday and 16 locations Saturday afternoon and evening ... 78 musical groups and musicians will be performing during Cape's biggest CITY OF ROSES MUSIC FESTIVAL. Located in downtown Cape and also the RIVER CAMPUS -- this could highlight Cape's best two days of fun and music ever. See the special tab in Thursday's Missourian for groups, times and locations.

Special children's entertainment at the River Campus will include the 100 young voices of the Clippard Elementary School choir.

You'll have the opportunity to hear some of the best blues, Christian rock, country and western, bluegrass, jazz and rock 'n' roll in the Midwest.

One wristband for both Friday and Saturday events ($15) will let you drop in at your choice of multiple locations. Friday only costs $7, and Saturday only is $10.

Friday and Saturday will also feature HOMECOMING WEEKEND for SEMO UNIVERSITY. The college football team fell short in an exciting comeback last Saturday witnessed by 11,000 fans ... many of whom stayed for the BEACH BOYS concert afterwards.

This weekend VINCE GILL is performing in the SHOW ME CENTER Friday evening, and many special awards events are slated.

On Saturday morning the traditional HOMECOMING PARADE starts about 9:30 a.m. from Capaha Park and proceeds down Broadway to Main (the Missourian has a precision marching team entry).

The parade will be preceded along the same Broadway route by the BROADWAY MILE RUN/WALK.

* * * * *

ALSO ... this coming Saturday and Sunday will feature the SKYDIVERS BOOGIE during daylight hours at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

Over 50 parachutists will be coming to Cape to get in as many as 10 jumps over the two-day period

Take a tandem ride (you parachute with a professional) for $150, and you can make a reservation by calling airport manager BRUCE LOY at 334-6230.

A shuttle bus will be running from the airport to the downtown area on Saturday where the music festival is being held.

* * * * *

Congratulations to the award winners at the ST. FRANCIS Medical Center's annual banquet attended by over 800 people last week.

Also to EDWIN SMITH, longtime art professor, patron and teacher of the arts to university and high school students of the area ... who won the prestigious OTTO DINGLEDINE AWARD presented by the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri. Well deserved!

The SOUTHEAST MISSOURI MUSIC ACADEMY presented its "Standing Ovation III" fund raising performance last Sunday in Old St. Vincent's Church followed by a reception for the patrons at MOLLIE'S.

The Southeast Missouri Music Academy is a not-for-profit organization offering comprehensive music instruction to the Cape Girardeau community and surrounding areas. The academy currently enrolls over 230 students ranging in age from 4 to 70 who study piano, organ, voice, flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, percussion, violin, viola, cello, string bass, guitar and harp. Special classes include theory, "Music, Movement and More" (pre-school class) and adult beginning piano.

The academy's outreach programs include scholarships for financially disadvantaged students and performers who go to area hospitals and nursing homes. These programs, plus other offerings, are a vital part of qualifications for full membership in the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts.

* * * * *

I listed the above events to give you just a small idea of the variety of events one can find each week in this area. And this doesn't cover the 400-player CASA soccer tournament, the Black Forest Octoberfest, the SEMO Gun Show and the many area football, softball, tennis and other athletic events, church programs etc.

NOTHING TO DO? Just get your copy of this week's TIPOFF and note the many other festivals and events scheduled for the immediate area this month. We try to inform you in advance of what's going to happen and also do our best to report on the highlights after the fact.

* * * * *

Web panic can kill local merchants: One of the key missions newspapers should have is to help their local merchants stay in business -- a major challenge in the midst of Web panic.

A survey completed in June estimated that there are now 800 million Web pages, of which only 16 percent can be located by the major search engines. That means most Web pages are lost in cyberspace or cyberjunk.

Newspapers can help solve these problems by creating dominant Web sites that aggregate eyeballs in a trade area that can funnel traffic to local business Web sites.

An article in the July 17 Economist predicted this role for online newspapers:

"Surely, someone will have to direct traffic to all those sites out there. That, after all, is the newspapers' job in the bricks-and-mortar world. They put together packages of copy, which attracts the viewers, who look at the advertising. Could they not do the same in this new medium?"

Further illustrating the problem of Web pages becoming cyberjunk was a GTE Directories survey of small businesses released last month.

"There's an increasingly high level of awareness (of the Internet), but a low level of understanding," said John McDonald, GTE Directories marketing vice president. "A lot of people believe intuitively it's important to their business, and while they're excited about it, they're also apprehensive."

The GTE survey reported that 31 percent of small businesses have some sort of Internet presence, ranging from having a full e-commerce Web page and individualized URL (address on the Web) to having a simple listing on some other web site to having a simple e-mail address. Of the 500 businesses surveyed, 25 percent had their own Web page. Andrew Beebe, who helped with the GTE survey, said small business owners "intuitively understand the power of the Net, but are not currently seeing the return on the investment."

In fact, a lot of investment in Internet advertising is going to waste. The message at last month's Newspaper Association of America Connections conference was that Internet directories aren't yet effective.

"If you take money out of online Yellow Pages and put it into online directories, your phone may stop ringing," says Peter M. Zollman of Advanced Interactive Media Group, who chaired the Connections session on directories.

We can walk up and down the main street of most small U.S. cities and find merchants who have invested in some kind of Internet advertising. Those who have built Web pages with a local Internet service provider or through a local chamber of commerce site probably are getting only nominal traffic.

You can have the most beautiful Web site in the world, but if no one knows about it, if the search engines can't find it, you've wasted your precious money, energy and time.

Newspapers have the solution. Just as they built print products that aggregated news, sports, photos, advertising and readers, they can best serve their local business community by building dominant online newspaper sites that aggregate news, advertising and audience. Unless there is a dominant Internet site (i.e., your online newspaper) to direct and promote Internet traffic, local merchants will waste time and money advertising on the Internet. -- Marc Wilson, general manager, International Newspaper Network

* * * * *

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.