Lewis and Clark planners to meet at Cape on Tuesday

The public will have a chance to find out about plans to celebrate the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial when 125 people involved in planning events around the state convene in Cape Girardeau.

The Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Community Workshop is one of two the state commission is holding yearly around the state to coordinate events in 2004, the anniversary year of the exploration. The public is invited to listen to presentations and participate in afternoon forums.

The meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. at the Show Me Center and continue to 4:15 p.m.

Among the state-level teachers will be:

Peter Geery, a member of the St. Charles, Mo., re-enactment group that will retrace the explorers' journey beginning in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Dr. Robert Archibald of the Missouri Historical Society, who will discuss the organization's plan for traveling exhibits.

Dr. Ken Winn of the Missouri State Archives, who will bring a map that overlays the original coordinates of the Lewis and Clark expedition on a current map.

Jane Randol Jackson, president of the Cape Girardeau Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Commission, will talk about the Red House Interpretive Center being built near the floodwall in Cape Girardeau. Other local participants will be Dr. Frank Nickell, director of the Center for Regional History at Southeast, and Dr. Carol Morrow, an anthropologist at Southeast.

Two representatives of the Mississippi County commemoration will detail plans to create a park at Bird's Point, the place where Lewis and Clark left the Ohio River and began their journey up the Mississippi.

Local approaches sought

St. Louis and Kansas City will host two of 14 national signature events planned during the bicentennial. Those will be the highlights of the bicentennial, but the state Department of Natural Resources is interested in other approaches as well.

"You can celebrate the commemoration as a big-bang thing, or you can look at some of the messages involved in the commemorations, such as settlement and diversity," says Frank Wesley, assistant to the executive director of the Missouri Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Commission. "We're interested in the spin-off benefits in the long run."

For example, the commission is trying to coordinate a curriculum schools can use during the bicentennial.

Wesley said many communities along the river already have used their Lewis and Clark connections as an interpretive and marketing tool for years and are enhancing the presentations for the bicentennial.

Cape Girardeau previously has paid little attention to the fact that the explorers stopped here on their way to open the West. Besides the construction of a log cabin like founder Don Louis Lorimier's trading post, the local commission plans a re-enactment and an archaeological dig. It also has applied for a stop by the Corps of Discovery II, a traveling exhibition that will be carried in three tractor-trailer trucks.

Jackson said she hopes many members of the public can attend to exchange information with the planners. "We're hoping there will be talk, not just speeches," she said.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182