Photo by Craig FritzTribune

Tribune

Brian Reyes of Alamogordo tries to maneuver a large drum across the University of New Mexico's snowy campus after attending a clinic for high school and junior high band directors at Popejoy Hall. Despite last week's record snowstorm and the fact UNM is on semester break, things were jumping on the university campus Thursday - due in part to the All-State Music Festival, which attracted 1,500 music students and more than 300 music teachers from around New Mexico.

Photo by Craig FritzTribune

Tribune

UNM maintenance employee Sutero Garcia works at clearing ice and snow from the steps leading into the plaza north of the university's Student Union Building. Steps are still treacherous on campus, but snowplows, ice-melting materials and hours of overtime effort by UNM staff have cleared many of the interior walkways and streets.

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Icicles, long and intimidating, hang from the brow of Travelstead Hall on the University of New Mexico campus.

In a courtyard a few yards away, a stout branch, bullied by heavy snow, has snapped in submission and hangs limply from a stately old mimosa tree.

Thick, fluffy blankets of dazzling snow lend a touch of Siberia to Johnson Field and the plaza in front of Zimmerman Library.

But if you think last week's record snowfall has turned the UNM campus into a wintry ghost town during semester break, you weren't trying to find a parking place there Thursday.

Vehicles lined up at the entrance to the parking structure on Redondo Road south, and cars, trucks, vans and yellow school buses hugged snow-crowned curbs and crowded campus lots.

Albuquerque brothers Matthew and Jason Lucero, on campus Thursday for the first time since fall semester finals, Dec. 9-16, were surprised by the bustle.

"I was expecting a lot more snow and not as many people," Jason, 28, said, as he and his brother put away hamburgers and fries in the Student Union food court.

Jason is working on a master's degree in statistics. Matthew, 26, is studying for an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering.

They live in the Northeast Heights but were on campus Thursday to buy books for spring semester, which starts Jan. 16.

There is still plenty of snow, ice and slush on campus - particularly on outdoor steps - but the Luceros were impressed by how much has already been cleared away.

"Eight tons of ice melt," said Willie West, UNM's manager of grounds and landscaping.

He was talking about the commercial product his crews have been spreading on campus to break down ice on interior walkways and streets.

West was sitting at the wheel of a Bobcat with a snowplow attachment after scooping up ice and snow from the walk between the Redondo Road parking structure and UNM's Center for the Arts.

He said eight plows and tractors of various sizes have been busy pushing snow and ice into piles out of the way of motor and pedestrian traffic.

"We've had a very good (UNM) staff working 12-hour shifts since last Friday," he said. "Plus two outside contractors started working here on Wednesday."

He said at least 200 of UNM's vast variety of trees had been downed or damaged by the storm and as many as 50 trees may be too far gone to save.

West, 43, is quick to smile, but it's obvious he is bothered by the beating taken by the trees.

"I was born and raised in Iowa," he said as he cranked up the Bobcat. "I moved out here to get away from this kind of stuff."

A short distance away, in front of the Center for the Arts, a fit of snowball hurling among some high school students was quickly stifled by adults in the party.

Some 1,500 of the state's best high school music students, selected by audition teams, are on the UNM campus through Saturday to take part in the All-State Music Festival sponsored by the New Mexico Music Educators Association.

Add to that band parents and more than 300 high school music teachers and you understand part of the bustle on campus and all of those yellow buses parked on the curbs.

Ron Lipka, 72, a former Albuquerque Public Schools band teacher and an NMMEA member, said last week's storm failed to stop music students from Portales, Clovis, Aztec, Cobre, Santa Rosa, Deming and many other towns around the state from getting to the festival.

"Except for a few individuals who were sick, apparently everybody made it," Lipka said. "Apparently the storm was worse here in Albuquerque than anywhere else in the state."

Las Cruces High School juniors Aria Furth and Mandy Peel, both 16 and both clarinetists, are among the music students attending the festival. While on break in the Center for the Arts, they talked about the festival.

Furth, who is attending her third festival, said she loves the atmosphere and the fact that all the kids and all the instructors care about the music.

Peel, who is taking part in her first festival, said she enjoys working with students who are accomplished musicians and who share the goal of making music part of their lives.

But both break into big, grade-school grins when asked about the snow, and they excitedly tell about a snowball fight between girls and boys the previous evening at their Albuquerque motel.

"I love the snow," Furth said.

Over at Zimmerman Library, a young man approaches librarian Evangel Oates, who is manning the reference desk, and asks what UMN has to offer in the way of studies in sound engineering.

Oates punches up some information on her computer screen and tells him where he needs to go to find out more.

Zimmerman reopened Wednesday after closing Dec. 21 for the Christmas break. Oates said she has been busier than she anticipated, answering reference questions from students and others and giving directions to places on campus.

Storm or no storm, she said, the library is a good place for resources, and people will get to a library if they can.

But libraries are also places for quiet, for study and reflection.

Thursday's strong sunlight, beating through the windows of Zimmerman's West Wing reading rooms, was not intrusive enough to disturb a handful of students and other scholars bent over books and laptops there.

Annie Giannini, 24, was folded up in a chair with several books.

A 2004 UNM theater graduate, Giannini is on break from her first semester of graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is visiting family in Albuquerque.

On Thursday, she was at Zimmerman looking into possible research topics for her second semester at Wisconsin.

She said things had been serene in this part of Zimmerman.

"So far, I've seen more snow in Albuquerque this week than I've seen in Wisconsin," she said. "And I've seen a lot more security guards than students in here."