The first time that Owen Lovejoy got the call it was from paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, who had found a fossilized knee joint buried in the Hadar region of Ethiopia and wanted to bring it back to the United States for another opinion.

The year was 1973, and together Lovejoy and Johanson analyzed the bones of what would be known as the oldest recorded upright-walking hominid--the 3.1-million-year-old "Lucy".

Lovejoy's phone hasn't stopped ringing since.

Thirty years later, the Kent State anthropology professor is anticipating publishing his recent work on an even older find-- Ardipithecus ramidus . In 2003 the world will know exactly what fundamental evidence of human origin the 4.4-million-year-old skeleton has to offer.

But Lovejoy even refuses to hint about what he warmly refers to as "Ardi", now the oldest known human ancestor. He simply laughs and says, "I can't say".

Though Lovejoy's focus lies on human origin, evolutionary theory and the fossil record, he has done research in the past in orthopedics, a branch of medicine that treats injuries or disorders to the skeletal system and its associated muscles, joints and ligaments, and forensic medicine, which is used for a legal purpose in such matters as establishing the cause of a death. His studies have led to his involvement in some high-profile criminal cases.

In 1978 he was called to identify the body of Jeffrey Dahmer's first victim. During the 1997 reinvestigation of Marilyn Sheppard's 1954 murder, Lovejoy was on hand to represent the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's office during the analysis of her skull.

In the meantime, he's had more than 100 articles published, including what he considers his greatest work--"The Origin of Man"--a model of human evolution and the emergence of bipedality that appeared in Science magazine in 1981.

If Lovejoy had a say in the matter, though, he wouldn't choose to be remembered for any of these things. Instead, the 59-year-old says he simply wants to be known for his relationship with his students.

Recently Lovejoy's wish came true.

Because of the impact Lovejoy made on one student's life, Kent State received a $6.8 million donation last November, the largest cash gift in the university's history.

The money was given to the school by Kent State alumnus Bruce Ferrini and his wife, Pamela, in memory of their sin, Matthew, a Kent State student who died from a drug overdose in 2001 at the age of 21. The money was used to create the Matthew Ferrini Institute for Human Evolutionary Research, which places Kent State on the forefront of biological anthropology research, with Lovejoy at the reins as director of the institute.

Ferrini, who is an international expert and dealer in medieval and Renaissance documents, called Lovejoy after the death of his son to discuss options of how to memorialize Matthew. The two first discussed endowing a chair, Lovejoy says, but once the idea of an institute came up, plans started to blossom.

"We created a kind of Chinese menu of things we could do, and Bruce ordered everything," Lovejoy says.

Ferrini has said that he donated the money because of what Lovejoy had been to him during his undergraduate years--an inspiration he hoped his son was able to find in his own life.

Despite his quest to establish just that sort of relationship with students, Lovejoy reacts to the words as expected. He stops stroking his gray goatee for a moment and leans forward with a small burst of laughter.

"Oh, he's lying!"

Lovejoy speaks of his past almost matter-of-factly. He doesn't dwell on the subject or elaborate beyond saying his parents were both strict Southern Baptists and also very bright. While he was born and raised in Kentucky, Lovejoy spent many summers in Grand Lake, Mich., where his father organized and built a church. He describes his mother as a German from Iowa who was very religious. His father died when Owen was only 14.