The unofficial grand opening of U.S. Highway 412 -- I guess it's not official until traffic actually begins using the two new westbound lanes -- was a nice affair with the justifiable recognition to a lot of people for a lot of work.

On hand for the ceremony were some of the sons and grandsons of the community's leaders who first started addressing the need for a four-lane highway back some 60 years ago.

I had the privilege of chauffeuring chamber exec Jan McElwrath, Patti Riggs and Marsha Blanchard in the second private vehicle to drive that section of roadway from Lake Jerry Paul Combs into the city. I followed the vehicle driven by Mike Mowrer who had, appropriately enough John Hall Dalton, son of the late governor and namesake of our new four-lane behind the escort of sheriff, police chief and state troopers who led the way.

I was standing next to local attorney and former highway commissioner Mark Preyer, who served on the commission when construction work on the project was first begun. The late Democratic governor, Mel Carnahan, appointed Mark, also a Democrat, to the highway commission. On the podium were representatives from Republican office holders, Sen. Kit Bond and Jo Ann Emerson who were very instrumental in securing funding for the project once it got on MoDot's radar screen when Mark went on the commission.

Mark may be the only commissioner in the state to have a ditch named after him. That problem came up when the highway department discovered a ditch used for drainage that had to be moved just a bit so construction could proceed.

I think the drainage ditch problem came up after questions regarding the historical significance of some architecture of a couple of older homes were settled. Located along side the roadway and designated for demolition someone raised the issue of allowing these buildings to be destroyed. Locally, several of us figured one more good storm and the problem would be solved, but government doesn't work that way.

The question of those buildings, referred to locally as "shotgun houses" was resolved and the work on the highway commenced anew.

A late fall rainy season forced MoDot's contractor, Illinois Paving, to suspend operation last fall. That decision meant we would have until late spring and eventually early summer, to actually open the highway. The target date to begin full use of the highway is Monday, July 9. However, just in case other problems arise before you go out there and start driving on those five miles into town make sure the highway is officially open.

The highway is an example of bipartisanship at its finest. That's another way of saying it's only "pork-barrel politics" when the other guy is getting the money. And, earmarks are not necessarily a bad thing. Because without the federal funds being designated to Highway 412 there's a good chance we'd still be driving on two lanes out there.

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New highway

By the time you read this we should have our new website up and running. The new site represents a move toward Web 2.0, or the next generation of Internet sites that is heavily focused on user-generated content. The new site is much more interactive with a lot of opportunities for feedback on a variety of topics.

And the initial offering is only the beginning. On the front page of the new site is a community calendar of events that will be of interest to our readers. In just a short while we hope to have a feature on the calendar that will allow readers to add events to the calendar themselves.

Another new feature that's going to get a lot of attention are the blogs. A blog, short for "weblog" is a collection of writings where people write down their thoughts on any number of subjects. Readers will also have the opportunity to respond to those thoughts on the individual writers' blog.

We have several staff members with blogs and several community bloggers. I would also suggest that if you have any desire to have your own blog to give Jack Rollins a call. Jack is the editor here and will be coordinating a lot of what happens with the new site.

In the very near future we plan to add features that will allow readers to post photos they've taken themselves.

For some time now we've had a video feed from the Associated Press. Another goal to be accomplished this year is to add the video feature for local news. We've already bought the cameras for our news staff. That's another feature we hope to be able to make available for readers to upload as well.

While we've been posting stories and photos for some time, we will begin uploading entire pages of the newspaper. Readers can now click on the front page and see it load in its entirety and we'll soon be doing that for all the pages. At some point in the future we will be putting the news pages behind a gate that will require a password to access. Current home delivery subscribers will get that password as part of their subscription. We think this feature holds real promise for our readers who live away from this area and are currently receiving their newspaper by mail. The mail, once it leaves the Cape Girardeau sorting facility (meaning local control) is terribly inefficient.

We've got a few other new features as well.

A link to News of the Weird appears that has a continuously updated list of offbeat stories. This is a service we've subscribed to and provides links to stories that are a little well, weird.

A "headline mailing list" is also being developed. That feature will provide a list of the daily headlines with links available to readers who wish to read the entire story.

The new website is a brave new world in more ways than one for traditional newspapers. Comments made and posted to the site will go up right away. Regular users of the old site are probably familiar with the "guestbook" feature, which got pretty freewheeling at times. So from the standpoint of letting readers express themselves without policing those comments, we're accustomed to interesting dialogue.

I believe it's only going to get more interesting.

Bud Hunt is the publisher of the Daily Dunklin Democrat.