Rebecca Edwards '80 Elkins prepares a hot air balloon for flight.

A record snowfall nearly scratched Rebecca Edwards ’80 Elkins’ journey from a ranch in central Nevada to Carnegie Hall. But her fierce loyalty to Cyril Stretansky and the opportunity to sing in one of America’s premier concert halls were motivators too strong to ignore.

Elkins and her husband make their home and living running Horse-N-Fly Ranch and working as commercial hot air balloon pilots. Although she holds a degree in music education, Elkins says she’s gone “about 57 other directions” since college. But like many other SU alumni, she remains an active musician, playing electric guitar in a jazz band, and playing acoustic guitar and singing in a local folk band based in central Nevada.

The Elkinses live in an area so rural that their mail is first sent to family in Wyoming and then forwarded by UPS. But when she heard about the concert, she knew she had to find a way to get there. Ordinarily, such a journey would not be a problem. She has family she visits in New Jersey a couple times a year and many friends in Pennsylvania. Each September she spends a month in Pennsylvania flying her hot air balloon for various events.

This trip was destined to be different. Record-setting snowfall had Elkins snowed in for several weeks. It was going to take a small miracle to dig out in time to make the journey. “The county got word of my plight and learned that my concert plans were hanging in the balance, so they made it their mission to come plow me out so I could catch my plane,” Elkins says. “That’s 25 miles of plowing, one way, for one person.”

Elkins also fought snowdrifts and knee-deep mud along a 280-mile trek to the nearest airport. Many hours later, she finally arrived on the rain-drenched streets of New York City.

Despite the weather, she says she’d do it again in a heartbeat. “The opportunity to sing at Carnegie Hall, under the baton of my favorite conductor ever was something I just had to do,” Elkins says. “The best singing I’ve ever done was with Cy. I have spent 30 years trying without success to find a conductor who was as fine and other performers who were as talented. Being a member of the Susquehanna University Chamber Choir was the single most vocally fulfilling experience of my life, and I miss it to this day.”