By JULIE MILLER

Staff Writer

Ah É Spring Break.

It's time to forget about professors, research papers and all things having to do with college. The things on many students' agendas for the upcoming break is sun, fun and a little R & R.

Many spring-breakers travel far and wide to get away from it all.

Senior aviation major Drew Leblanc said he and his friends began planning their Spring Break trip as a joke, but it turned into reality. Leblanc said the group of eight guys are renting two planes and flying themselves to South Padre Island, Texas, for a five-day fun fest.

"We're going to see how much trouble we can get into," Leblanc said. "We plan on going to clubs and picking up some ladies. We'll probably wake up on the beach one morning."

Leblanc said the cost of the planes is about $700 for the week, and the group will have two hotel rooms priced at $150 a night.

"Spring Break to me is a way to get away from Ruston and party with other people that you never have to see again," Leblanc said.

Taking the old-fashioned way of traveling by truck, Cate Davis, a sophomore merchandising major, and five of her friends have planned a road trip to Santa Fe, N.M., for six days of the break.

"We're packing up my brother's truck and leaving as soon as classes get out on Tuesday," she said.

Davis said the group has planned to make the 16-hour drive in one day.

"We are splitting the cost [of gas] even," Davis said. "I'm really excited about spending time with my friends and seeing snow."

Davis said the group will go skiing and snowboarding for two days of the trip.

"I am hoping I can get off the bunny slopes," she said. "It's going to be so cold. We are going to bundle up in hunting clothes and camo because we don't have any ski clothes."

While Davis and her friends shiver from the wintry weather, Ian Haneline, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, said he will be in warm Panama City, Fla.

Haneline said he and 10 of his friends are staying in a condo on the beach for five days during the break.

"First, we're going to see the John Mayer concert in Pensacola, [Fla.], and after that we're just going to hang out on the beach and the condo," Haneline said.

The group will travel in three cars and split the cost of gas, Haneline said.

"Two of the girls are on 'food committee,' and we're splitting the cost of everything even," he said. "I think it's going to be really nice to go somewhere for Spring Break and actually go someplace fun."

So as the finals come to an end and students start packing up their cars to leave for the break, the question is not, "Where are they going?"

It's more like, "What kind of trouble are they going to get into?"