St. Louis will be one of the starting points next Monday for a 34-city “Keep it Made in America” bus tour that’s meant to drum up support for the U.S. auto industry. The organizers, led by the United Steelworkers and the Alliance for American Manufacturing, say they’ll fill buses with auto-parts workers, car dealers, elected leaders and others, and hit the road in hopes of getting some positive press. Some of the same folks will reconvene on May 19 for an automotive “teach-in” in Washington.

One bus will leave St. Louis — which just found out it’s losing a Chrysler plant — and head for Arlington, Texas. One of its stops is in Shreveport, where a General Motors plant reportedly is on the endangered list. Perhaps the most interesting of the four bus routes is one that starts in Indianapolis and ends in Fairfield, Ala.  It passes through a couple of GM assembly sites — Bowling Green, Ky., and Spring Hill, Tenn. — but winds up in a state that’s home to three foreign-owned auto plants (Mercedes, Hyundai and Honda). It passes through the home turf of Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., both of whom have been outspoken opponents of bailouts for GM and Chrysler.