Olympic torch to make way through WUSTL campus

WHO: Torchbearers E. Desmond Lee, Teri Clemens and Michael DeBaun, M.D., along with members of the Washington University community and local residents.

WHAT: The Athens 2004 Olympic Torch Relay will come to two different parts of the Washington University campus.

WHERE: Washington University's Francis Field, near the intersection of Big Bend and Forsyth boulevards, and on the steps of Brookings Hall, the university's main administrative building parallel to Skinker Boulevard.

WHEN: Starting at approximately 7:45 p.m. Thursday, June 17, 2004.

HIGHLIGHTS:
• St. Louis philanthropist E. Desmond Lee will carry the torch into Washington University's Francis Field via the Big Bend entrance at approximately 7:45 p.m.

• Teri Clemens, who led the Washington University Bears volleyball team to seven Division III national championships — six straight from 1991-96, which included the undefeated 1992 squad that was 40-0 — will then take the torch around the track on Francis Field, the site of the 1904 Olympic track and field events. From Aug. 29 to Sept. 3, 1904, Francis Field and Francis Gymnasium, now registered historical landmarks, were the site of the Olympic Games — the 3rd Olympiad of the modern era and the first held in the Western Hemisphere.

• After the torch has made its way through University City and back toward campus via Skinker Boulevard, Michael R. DeBaun, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics and of biostatistics at the Washington University School of Medicine and a leading researcher of the causes and effects of sickle cell disease, will carry the torch up the Brookings Hall steps and back down again. Completed in 1902, Brookings Hall was leased by the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company to be the administrative center for the 1904 World's Fair.