SPANISH FORT, ALABAMA - A Georgia Tech engineering student died in a ski accident while in New Mexico on a family vacation. <br>
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Melissa Murray, 19, suffered head injuries in a fall near Taos, N.M. on Thursday, a family friend told the Mobile Register in Saturday's edition. Murray was on a post-Christmas vacation trip with her parents and her younger sister and brother. <br>
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She slid on ice and went over a high embankment or cliff, said Cheryl Pischek, a friend of the family. <br>
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Her parents were en route from New Mexico to Spanish Fort on Friday, where members of the family's church, Spanish Fort United Methodist, expressed sympathy and grief. <br>
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``It's really a hard thing that happened to such a bright person, who had so much potential,'' the Rev. Chip Hale said. <br>
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Murray graduated from Daphne High School as one of 12 valedictorians in 2000. She was studying engineering on a Georgia Tech scholarship.
