Media Advisory

TO                         News Editors, Features Editors and Science Writers

FROM                     American Society of Civil Engineers Student Chapter

SUBJECT                UAF Ice Arch Dedicated to Texas A & M Students

LOCATION              UAF Campus

DATE & TIME          Saturday, March 4 at 11 p.m.

A candlelight ceremony will be held Saturday at 11 p.m. to dedicate the University of Alaska Fairbanks Ice Arch in memory of students from Texas A & M University who died during a bonfire collapse at that school last fall. Twenty-seven candles will be lit— one for each student injured while constructing the annual Texan bonfire. The candlelight will flicker on the ice-carved names of 12 Aggie students who died in the collapse at 2:30 a.m. Central Standard Time (11:30 p.m. Alaska Standard Time) on Nov. 18, 1999.

UAF's Ice Arch Project, sponsored by the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers, was designed to represent an unfinished bell tower. The structure is unfinished to reflect the impact that the Texas bonfire tragedy has had even as far away as Alaska, according to project director Ben Angel.

Engineering students from all disciplines have spent several weeks building the arch, which will stand in the middle of campus for as long as the weather permits. When spring melting renders the structure unstable, ASCE student members will knock the ice arch down.

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CONTACT: Bob Perkins, associate professor of environmental engineering, at (907) 474-7694.

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