To the editor:

If you build it, will they come? Buildings don't make communities. People do. The buildings help, certainly, and the fact that we live in the geographic center of our country, on Twain's Mississippi, with the new River Campus school of the arts overlooking that vista, is yet another point of pride. Visions presented, tested, questioned, interrogated, reconsidered, moved on again, two steps forward, one step back, but remaining true to the spirit are made by people working together, consensually, adapting, molding and massaging that vision.

On behalf of the Programs in Dance at Southeast Missouri State University and the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri and as a proud resident of a very interesting city (these roles do not have to be mutually exclusive), I want to thank in advance an increasingly larger consortium of communities in our Cape region involved with sponsoring, supporting, presenting, performing and representing the rejuvenating spirit of community, artistry and potential within us all through the Embracing Diversity Symposium today through Saturday. The schedule of 16 events is all over town this week, but it's the people who matter.

Here's just a partial list of some who are involved, contributing, giving of their time and heart and creativity. Thank you in advance: Jim Pelfrey and Ranger, Kerry Wynn, Ed Snider, Deborah Stuart, Dale Nitzschke, Miki Gudermuth, Larry Easley, Martin Jones, Daniel North, Leslie Stucker, my parents and brother, John Mehner, Carol McDowell, Mary Pensel, Dave Schneider, all my students, Amy Kephart, Sam Blackwell, Tamara Buck, Kindal Blattner, Tom Lee, Sabatino Verlezza, Mary Verdi-Fletcher -- the list goes on and on. I've left people out, I'm sure. Come see them yourselves, in surprising situations.

The culminating event? An all-day affair Saturday (rain date Sunday) including Arts for All, university and community arts together (music, dance, visual arts, theater, croquet parties, cookout) and Celebration of the Arts on the seminary grounds overlooking the river. And the Cleveland Ballet Dancing Wheels, a company that integrates (thats the operative word) abled and disabled dancers and has toured the world over, often with Christopher Reeve, and is performing here in Cape Girardeau at the Show Me Center at 6 p.m. Saturday.

If we build it, will they come? The buildings would be nice, and they are coming, because they are us, and we're already here. Congrats to people in an interesting city who know in their hearts what the arts can do for them, for their children and for their grandparents -- legacy, ancestors, presence.

MARC STRAUSS, Assistant Professor of DanceDepartment of Physical EducationSoutheast Missouri State University

Cape Girardeau