In June, Charles K. Lee '93 and David G. Sword '93 became graduates of Harvard. With promising futures, they left the University to pursue careers in business and public service.

In July, however, old obligations from the time they spent at Harvard pulled them back towards the University.

Lee and Sword are at the center of investigations being carried out by the Middlesex County District Attorney's office and by the University into $160,000 in missing funds from Evening With Champions, the Eliot House ice-skating charity show.

Lee and Sword, who were both students in Eliot House, were the two organizers for the fall 1992 show with the most responsibility over the charity's money. Sword also served as treasurer for the fall 1991 show. Sword, in particular, is under scrutiny because he allegedly told another student involved in organizing Evening With Champions that he had taken some of the money, according to a highly-placed source and the Boston Globe.

The missing $160,000 was due the Jimmy Fund, which raises money for cancer research and treatment, particularly of young victims. The resulting publicity has been enormous, if predictable. Recent Harvard graduates, with opportunities at six-figure incomes, linked to the diversion of funds intended for a children's charity? That's big news.

Both Sword and Lee have hired attorneys, and neither will discuss the missing money. But the probes, which are expected to last for months, have already had a cost.

Sword resigned this summer from a private youth service he had helped found in Toronto, Canada. Sword gave no reason for the resignation, but told the Toronto Star he was disappointed to be leaving the youth service. "There's so many emotions right now--pride, excitement about a great program... and deep frustration, deep disappointment," Sword told the Toronto Star.

But dozens of friends of the two recent graduates interviewed over the past week say there is a cruel irony in all this. Both students, these friends say, are generous, ethical and committed to Eliot House. No one can imagine Lee or Sword running off with $160,000.

"Anyone who accuses David of anything wrong is wrong," says Jeff Zimmerman '93, who, like Sword, was a member of the Fox final club. "There's no doubt in my mind that he couldn't have done anything like that."

Last month, the Middlesex district attorney's office announced that it was looking into why $160,000 was missing from the accounts of the Evening With Champions, an Eliot House ice skating charity show to benefit the Jimmy Fund. The investigation is now centering on two members of the Class of 1993, each of whom made a significant contribution to the College community. The two classmates come from different backgrounds, but their work together in Eliot House has made them the subject of scrutiny.

"He is a good friend and a good roommate," says Paul Bamford '93, one of Lee's roommates. "He was just the greatest guy."

Even if Lee and Sword are eventually cleared, the biggest damage, many Eliot House residents fear, has already been done. Evening With Champions, which has donated more than $1 million to the Jimmy Fund over the past 23 years, may have lost the public's trust.

The current co-chairs, Jonathan Kolodner '94 and Kelly Morrison '94, acknowledged as much in a press conference last month at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, which spends the money raised by the Jimmy Fund.

"This is a tragic and disheartening situation for us and for the other Eliot House volunteers, the Jimmy Fund and the many New England families who support this wonderful event each year," said Kolodner and Morrison, who are cooperating with the investigation. "It is our hope that this time-honored event will go forward as planned."

David G. Sword and Charles K. Lee come from very different places. Sword, 23, was born in Moose Jaw (pop. 34,424), an agriculture hub in the prairie lands of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Friends say the family has bounced around a lot, and the address given for Sword in the class of 1993 freshman register is for a military post office box in upstate New York.

The Sword family now resides in Fairfax, Virginia. Sword's father, Rod, is a colonel in the Canadian Air Force, and serves as liaison to the United States Air Force Command, according to a family friend.