DETROIT, MI — Wayne State University will be celebrating the passage of winter with its quirky and original tradition, the 23rd annual Funeral for Ol’ Man Winter, at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 5, 2006. Led by the “Monster Truck Hearse,” a Harley Davidson hearse and a Dixieland band playing New Orleans-style funeral music, the procession will rumble through campus to take WSU students, employees and the community on a wild and wacky burial march starting at Jimmy John’s outside South Residence Hall (off Anthony Wayne Drive). Marchers will bury winter and welcome Ms. Spring outside the Circa 1890 Saloon on Cass Avenue between Warren and Palmer.

Condemning winter will be former WDIV Local 4 television personality Dwayne X. Riley, who will perform a brief ceremony in front of Circa 1890 Saloon, welcoming warmer weather and crowning Ms. Spring, 2006 Wayne Idol winner and WSU student Alisha Durrett. Durrett will welcome spring to Detroit in song. After the ceremony, Circa owner Steve Xantheas will welcome all mourners and celebrators to dine inside, where he will donate the day’s proceeds to the WSU Department of Athletics and Mortuary Science Program. Each lunch diner will receive a special gift package, filled with sponsor giveaways and coupons, including spring water donated by Pepsi and spring flowers donated by Blumz... by JRDesigns. Other sponsors are 89X, Channel 955, Apple and WSU’s Dean of Students Office, Student Center and Office of Marketing and Communications.

For information, call (313) 577-1795 or visit http://cwis-1.wayne.edu/ffomw/.