-Staff Report
Solar-powered cars competing along a 2,300-mile course and famed Mexican folkloric dancer Miguel Caro-Zarigoza are set to make appearances at UNM’s free festivities for the Route 66 Diamond Jubilee.
“UNM — the Destination for Education on the Route,” is the theme for the University’s celebration July 20-22.
Visitors can pick up a game card from a tent near the UNM Bookstore, at the northwest corner of Cornell Drive and Central Avenue, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. July 21. Those who have the game card stamped at different campus locations are eligible to win prizes, including two free Southwest Airlines tickets to anywhere the airline flies on Route 66, between Chicago and Los Angeles.
More than 25 campus departments will provide information and hands-on activities from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. north of the bookstore. Highlights include demonstrations on the creative reuse of recyclable materials by the Wemagination Center staff and an appearance by the UNM ski team.
A Pepsi Challenge booth and UNM’s Lifeguard helicopter, Albuquerque fire engines and other rescue units will be on display at Johnson Field.
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Hot Jazz band will perform at the UNM Bookstore from noon to 2 p.m. Miguel Caro-Zarigoza, a UNM adjunct faculty member, follows at 3 p.m. The store also is holding a sidewalk sale July 16-22 in honor of the Route 66 celebration.
UNM Recreational Services will offer a variety of family-oriented activities Saturday, including a climbing wall, Hula Hoop contest, interactive children’s games and “Dive in Movies” at Johnson Pool. On July 15, the department’s Getaway Adventures program is offering an interpretive tour on Route 66 to Grants, with stops at Laguna Pueblo, Cubero and Santa Maria de Acoma Church. Call 277-0178 for more information.
The nation’s largest mariachi event, Mariachi Spectacular, has been scheduled to coincide with the Route 66 celebration. Mariachi performances at Civic Plaza are set for July 20, from 7-10 p.m., July 21 from 7-10 p.m. at The Pit and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the State Fairgrounds.
Historical tours of Hodgin Hall, UNM’s first building, which opened in September 1892, will be offered July 20 and July 21 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
The University Art Museum’s main level will feature an exhibition of Gus Foster’s large-scale panoramas of Route 66 through Albuquerque. Downstairs, work from the permanent collection pays homage to the great east-west road. The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology north gallery will feature the exhibit “Trading Images: Swapping and Shopping on Route 66.”
The UNM General Library will feature a 90-minute video about Route 66 to be shown in the Willard Reading Room in Zimmerman Library July 20 from noon to 5:30 p.m. and July 21-22 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Friends of the UNM Libraries, Inc., also will sponsor a Route 66 lecture on July 20 at 10:30 a.m. in the Willard Reading Room.
Solar cars competing in the longest such race in history will arrive at the UNM checkpoint at Lot A (at the southeast corner of campus) July 19-22 in fleets of five.
UNM has been involved in the life of the American thoroughfare since before it became known as Route 66. The University was created by a territorial act on Feb. 28, 1889, on what became Route 66.
By 1892, a wagon, drawn by six horses, would bring the students up the dirt road and Ms. Parsons, who served as both the auditor and home economics teacher for the early University on the mesa, would collect the five-cent fare from its passengers.
For updates on UNM’s Route 66 Diamond Jubilee events, check the Route 66 web page at http://www.unm.edu/~paaffair/route66.html.
