Missouri Gov. Mike Parson was presented three items Monday from the Poplar Bluff Boys and Girls Club to include in the state’s bicentennial time capsule.
Longtime Boys and Girls Club student LeAra Hopson presented Parson with a copy of Kati Ray’s book about the victims of the 1927 Poplar Bluff tornado, representing something from the past and the city’s comeback from tragedy.
Representing something from the present was a pewter plate from the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial, one of only 200 which were commissioned by a Poplar Bluff city committee at the time.
That plate, Butler County Emergency Management Agency Director Robbie Myers said, now is being repurposed to celebrate the state’s bicentennial.
The final presentation to Parson was an I-57 lapel pin, designed to represent something in the future.
The current U.S. Highway 60 between Sikeston and Poplar Bluff and Highway 67 between Poplar Bluff and the Arkansas state line are in a multi-phase process of upgrades to interstate standards and will become the I-57 interstate in the coming years.