Students in Mrs. Floyd's eighth-grade MERIT Georgia Studies class recently had the opportunity to see and hold an original 1996 Olympics torch. The torch belongs to Instructional Coach Debbie Lasseter's husband, Steve Lasseter.

Steve Lasseter was nominated and chosen as a community hero, and became one of the torchbearers as it passed through Thomasville on its way to Atlanta in the Summer of 1996. Lasseter was offered the opportunity to purchase the torch he carried. The torch relay through the United States was sponsored by one of the Olympics' largest sponsors, Georgia-based Coca-Cola. The students were wrapping up their unit on modern Georgia, which includes a standard on the impacts of the 1996 Olympics on the state.