Last modified: Tuesday, July 2, 2002
Media Advisory
Memorial and service to mark third anniversary of IU Korean student's death
EDITORS: The Indiana University Korean Student Association (IUKSA) and Korean residents of Bloomington have planned a memorial service for Thursday (July 4) to mark the third anniversary of the death of Won-Joon Yoon, a 26-year-old Korean graduate student at IU who was killed by a white supremacist on July 4, 1999. The public is invited.
A monument to Yoon will be dedicated in a service at 11 a.m. at the Korean United Methodist Church, 1924 E. Third St. in Bloomington. Among those participating in the service will be Yoon's parents; Sharon Stephens Brehm, chancellor of the IU Bloomington campus; and Patrick O'Meara, IU dean of international programs.
A media availability has been scheduled for Wednesday (July 3) at 11 a.m. for reporters who would like to talk with the Yoons and other participants. It will take place in the conference room of the Korean United Methodist Church (located in the basement of the church).
Also available for interviews Wednesday will be Sung-Jin Park, IUKSA president and a doctoral student in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs; Yong-Kuk Chung, IUKSA vice president and a doctoral student in telecommunications; Sang-Woo Lee, former IUKSA president and a doctoral student in telecommunications; and You-Shin Choi, IUKSA advisory committee member and a visiting scholar of philosophy from Sun-Moon University in South Korea.
Yoon was shot by Benjamin Smith, a white supremacist who had distributed racially and religiously degrading pamphlets in the community while an undergraduate at IU Bloomington the preceding academic year. Smith also killed Ricky Byrdsong, a former Northwestern University men's basketball coach, in Skokie, Ill., on July 3, 1999, and wounded nine others in the Illinois cities of Chicago, Skokie, Springfield, Decatur and Champaign-Urbana, before killing himself late in the evening of July 4.
