Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 30, 1993 TAG: 9312300242
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MARA LEE Staff Writer
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Not if Virginia Tech's band director David McKee had a thing to say about it. "If I was having any more fun, they'd have to shoot me!" he exclaimed Wednesday morning as he fielded calls from Pittsburgh and Tidewater, Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland - all from stranded students hoping to get to Blacksburg before the buses rolled out for the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La.
The 320-member marching band planned to leave Tuesday, but postponed the departure partly because students couldn't get back from break and partly because the route through Tennessee was in the path of the storm.
The New River Valley was almost blase about another round of the white stuff on Tuesday night. When the ice-coated streets drivers didn't even try to go out. Johnny Beane, Blacksburg street department foreman, said the department advised drivers to stay home at night. "When the temperature drops below 20 degrees, the salt just doesn't work," he said.
"People certainly exercised good judgment [Tuesday] night," said Sandy Childress, AAA road service director. "It was very slow."
And the road crews know the routine. "We've used probably as much [salt] already as we did last year" the whole winter, Beane said. "The snow just keeps coming."
Primary roads across the valley were merely wet by the middle of the day Wednesday, but crews said they expected slick conditions after dark.
Christiansburg street department foreman Don Sumler said the night sets you "right back to where you started." By morning Wednesday, Blacksburg police dispatcher Patricia Metcalf said just one car had gone off the road. "It's just been wonderful."
But in rural Floyd, "the secondary roads are terrible," said dispatcher Randall Nolen. "Covered with ice and snow, just about all of them. They're real treacherous. We've got a lot of vehicles in the ditches." He estimated 25-30 were still off the road by mid-morning, from skids starting Tuesday at nightfall.
Things were looking up at Tech, though. By the rehearsal Wednesday afternoon in the fieldhouse, only 30-50 members were still AWOL. The students, duckboot and hiking-boot clad, with gloves and jackets still on in the chilly building, griped about the late start, and the brass section played snippets of the Who's "Pinball Wizard."
At first the band wanted to leave on Monday, but the athletic department wanted to save money on a night's hotel bills.
Rainier Homoroc, a junior from Woodbridge, arrived in Blacksburg Monday, as did many students. The late start cost the band two practices in Shreveport.
Drummers couldn't even rehearse Wednesday, as the drums and tubas had already been sent south.
The tuba players played touch football - the drummers rapped wooden risers.
Steven Lavery, a saxophonist from Victor, N.Y., left Monday because of his 10-hour drive. "The people in Northern Virginia, they didn't need to leave as early as I did, and they got caught up in it."
Lavery, a junior, professed snow-driving expertise, but admitted ice stumps Yankees and Southerners alike.
The lone majorette, Jill Lawrence, had the best horror story. Lawrence's parents drove her up from Richmond Tuesday. The trip on interstates 64 and 81 usually takes 3 1/2 hours. Tuesday it took seven.
"We ran off the road a few times," she said. "Everybody in front just stopped real quick. We saw tow trucks and wrecks the whole way."
Lawrence, a senior, knew the bus had been postponed, but the forecast said the weather would go from bad to worse in central Virginia.
Only 20 of the 33-person flag squad was at the rehearsal. Lawrence worried, "I just hope we have time to practice so we know what we're doing before we get out there."
Indiana's band is already in Shreveport, she said.
After the eight buses travel 20 hours, the band will get out and immediately rehearse for five hours plus.
"We're going to ask an awful lot of them," McKee said. "These guys work as hard as they possibly can."
The missing students are distributed pretty evenly throughout the instrument sections, he said, and because the band is so large, the loss won't be severe.
"It's a confidence thing for us," said McKee, his spirits undampened by the complications.
Although McKee had to advise Cleveland members to turn back, and he's still not sure if some Pittsburgh, Tidewater, Maryland and Northern Virginian band members will make it, he said no student had gotten in an accident on the way down.
And the good news is, it's going to be a balmy 40s or even perhaps 50s degree day in Shreveport. The brass instruments' valves won't freeze up and Lawrence said she may wear her short-sleeved leotard.
McKee, still upbeat, said, "More fun than we should have, right?"
by CNB