Margaret and Turner Branch Donate $1.5 Million to Lobo Athletics to Name Field at University Stadium

Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Ath­let­ics and the Lobo Club have announced that Mar­garet and Turner Branch have con­tributed $1.5 mil­lion to Lobo Ath­let­ics for the nam­ing rights to the foot­ball field at Uni­ver­sity Sta­dium.  The field will now be called “Branch Field” and will honor these two Albu­querque attor­neys who are proud Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico alumni. The Branches have made numer­ous sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in sup­port of UNM Ath­let­ics for more than 30 years.

This land­mark dona­tion is the sec­ond largest gift ever made to UNM Ath­let­ics by liv­ing indi­vid­u­als and counts toward the $75 mil­lion goal of the “Lobo Leap to Excel­lence” cap­i­tal cam­paign for Ath­let­ics, as well as the university-wide com­pre­hen­sive cam­paign,” Chang­ing Worlds: The Cam­paign for UNM.”  To show their appre­ci­a­tion, UNM Ath­let­ics and the Lobo Club will rec­og­nize the Branches dur­ing half­time of the season-opening foot­ball game on Sept. 1 when the Lobos play host to South­ern Uni­ver­sity at 3 p.m., MDT.

When fans arrive at Uni­ver­sity Sta­dium to kick off the 2012 sea­son, they will notice a brand new, state-of-the-art, syn­thetic field that was built with the sup­port of the New Mex­ico leg­is­la­ture and Gov­er­nor Susana Mar­tinez. The turf now will be embla­zoned with “Branch Field” on each half.  Field­Turf, the national leader in arti­fi­cial turf, has man­u­fac­tured and installed the sur­face in the sta­dium. The nam­ing rights for “Branch Field” are effec­tive for the next 15 years.

“The gen­er­ous sup­port of alumni such as Mar­garet and Turner Branch is key to the con­tin­ued suc­cess of this uni­ver­sity,” said UNM pres­i­dent, Dr. Robert Frank. “That kind of lead­er­ship is inspir­ing because it shows our cur­rent stu­dents that their pre­de­ces­sors appre­ci­ate the Lobo expe­ri­ence enough to make it even bet­ter for future generations.”

Turner Branch is a 1960 grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico, where he served as pres­i­dent of the stu­dent body. He was a mem­ber of Phi Sigma Alpha, the Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Hon­ors Soci­ety, an active mem­ber in Chaaka, and was pres­i­dent of his social fra­ter­nity, Pi Kappa Alpha – where he con­tin­ues to be an active and sup­port­ive alum­nus. He grad­u­ated from Bay­lor Law School, where he was edi­tor of the Bay­lor Law Review and received the T.R. McDon­ald Award as the out­stand­ing law stu­dent in 1969.

His wife, Mar­garet, received her under­grad­u­ate degree from the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico with hon­ors in 1975.  Mrs. Branch was stu­dent body pres­i­dent, was an active mem­ber of the Chi Omega soror­ity, which she is still active in today as an alum­nus, and par­tic­i­pated on the UNM golf team.  Mar­garet received her law degree in 1978 from the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico School of Law.

Together, they own and oper­ate the Branch Law Firm – which Turner estab­lished in 1966.

“We are thrilled to honor Mar­garet and Turner Branch with the nam­ing rights to our foot­ball field,” said UNM Vice Pres­i­dent for Ath­let­ics Paul Krebs. “I can’t think of a bet­ter cou­ple to have their name indeli­bly asso­ci­ated with Lobo Foot­ball than the Branches.”

The Branches’ dona­tion is vital to the task first-year coach Bob Davie has under­taken in build­ing a foun­da­tion for the Lobo foot­ball program.

“It is a tremen­dous honor to have the Branch name on our foot­ball field,” Davie said. “I have been for­tu­nate enough to spend a lot of time with Mar­garet and Turner Branch and have a deep appre­ci­a­tion for all that they stand for. We hope to show our appre­ci­a­tion of their gen­eros­ity by putting a prod­uct on the field that they and all of New Mex­ico can be proud of.”

The nam­ing rights are sub­ject to the approval of the full UNM Board of Regents.

Media con­tacts: Dianne Ander­son, UNM (505) 277‑1807; email: danderson@unm.edu; Greg Archuleta, Lobo Ath­let­ics (505) 925‑5520; email: garchsr@unm.edu; or Wendy Anto­nio, UNM Foun­da­tion (505) 277‑9520; email: wendy.antionio@unmfund.org