5/1/97 Contacts: Dwight Woodward, 614-593-1886; Nancy Kearney/TIME, 212-522-4859

ATHENS, Ohio -- TIME magazine and Ohio University will host a joint "town meeting" on public school financing Wednesday, May 7, on the Athens campus. The town meeting is in conjunction with TIME's cross-country bus trip exploring U.S. Route 50, the "backbone of America," in search of the modern American Dream.

"How we pay for schools and whether there is a better way are fundamental questions that confront every community in America," said TIME Managing Editor Walter Isaacson. "What happens in Washington and in State Houses across the country begins right in our own communities, and we want to hear what's on peoples' minds on this important issue."

The town meeting, which will be moderated by Ohio University President Robert Glidden, will be held at 7 p.m. in Ohio University's Baker Theater, Kantner Hall, College Street. Ohio University faculty members and other community officials, along with editors and writers from TIME, will join in a roundtable discussion on how Ohio communities and the state pay for education, an issue recently before the Ohio Supreme Court.

"The TIME -Ohio University forum offers participants an opportunity to discuss the important issue of public school funding in a traditional small-town meeting atmosphere," Glidden said. "School funding is not only an important issue in Ohio, but in many other states as well. In a sense, TIME, the nation's oldest weekly news magazine, is taking the pulse of the nation on the Ohio University campus. Those who have an opinion or are interested in the school funding debate should plan to attend."

The town meeting is free and open to the public.

Exploring the "backbone of America," TIME magazine editors, reporters and photographers will cross the country by bus in an effort to define the modern American Dream. TIME's two-and-a-half-week trip, which will begin in Ocean City, Md., on May 5 and end in San Francisco on May 21, will cross U.S. Route 50, through hundreds of communities and four state capitals in 12 states.

"The real story of 1997 is the American Dream, how it's working and how we're working together as a community," said Isaacson. "There is something uniquely American about the open road. If we can write about the backbone of America, both what unites us and what has the potential to divide us, then we will be able to explain what kind of a country we're becoming."

Throughout the cross-country trip, TIME's staff will engage people along the way through town meetings and other forums.The results of this American mind-meld will appear in an extensive special report in an upcoming TIME issue.