This story was first published as “Faces of Southeast Missouri: Brenda Newbern” in the June 2025 issue of The Best Years.
Brenda Newbern, manager of Parks and Recreation Tourism Division for the City of Cape Girardeau, was born and raised in Cape Girardeau. She worked her first job at Cape’s public library and then entered the tourism realm by working as a secretary for Howard Johnson’s. She became more involved in the hotel industry as a salesperson for Midamerica Hotels Corporation, where she worked for 13 years. At that position, she loved that each day was different as she worked with groups coming to Cape Girardeau for events such as antique car shows, sports tournaments and weddings.
When the position for executive director of Cape Girardeau’s Convention and Visitors Bureau opened up, she knew she was the person for the job.
“Cape is home,” Newbern says. “I love talking with people, I love selling our city, I love dreaming about things I’d like to have here.”
In her time as executive director since 2016, Newbern has led the organization through strategic planning, rebranding the organization as Visit Cape. She has also overseen a move from Visit Cape’s downtown offices to the Osage Centre.
This year, Visit Cape is bringing the USS LST-325 World War II floating museum to Cape Girardeau for the first time in nearly 10 years, and Newbern is also working with business owners locally and throughout the region to create more experiences for motorcoach groups to participate in when they come to Cape Girardeau. She says her biggest accomplishment in the position, however, is continuing to make Cape relevant to visitors, efforts which led to $270 million to Cape Girardeau County in tourism spending and employment as reported by the Missouri Division of Tourism in 2024 and $101,000 in hotel/motel tax in March 2025.
Even on the challenging days, Newbern says she loves the work she does, and she doesn’t do it alone: She lifts up the team that works with her to promote Cape Girardeau.
A Cape Central Tiger who says she bleeds orange and then a Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO) Redhawk, Newbern enjoys attending her alma maters’ football and basketball games. She likes the size of Cape Girardeau and that it offers the amenities of a larger city without the traffic. Although she says she loves all of the places in Cape, her favorite go-to restaurants include Port Cape because it’s “always been there” and Pagliai’s, where she orders the sausage pizza.
In addition to the amenities, Newbern enjoys the easy access to nature through the riverfront and local parks and trails.
“I love to walk. I think it’s peaceful. It’s a total body exercise. And it lets me release my mind,” Newbern says. “I have a lot of spiritual convictions, so that’s where I can talk and be who I want to be or see who I’m supposed to be.”
Newbern says growing up along the Mississippi River gave her a love for bodies of water; when she can’t be at the ocean, she goes to the riverfront and waits for barges to go by so she can listen to the lapping of water along the shore that they create in their wake. Besides Cape Girardeau, her favorite places are near the ocean, specifically the Dominican Republic and Hawaii.
“When you go to those places, they’re big bodies of water where you can play in, splash in along the edges,” Newbern says. “It just lets me know that God’s out there, and he’s bigger than anybody else, because I can look out into infinity with that ocean, and it just brings me closer to who I believe in.”
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