I attended a small private four-year college in Burlington, VT. We didn’t have athletic teams however it was a small community, everyone pretty much knew everyone and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world.
Then we come to the South. The South loves their big (huge) schools and has the best school spirit I’ve ever seen. Everyone goes to the games and everyone wears the school colors. Case in point – A&M. A&M is a huge engineering and agriculture school located in College Station, Texas. The students are known as “Aggies” and they all wear maroon. All of them.
We arrived at A&M and I immediately felt like a small fish in a big ole pond. A&M is enormous, massive, too big for this Vermonter. All I could think was that I could never go to school here. For starters, I would need a moped to get to class. Everyone wears maroon, and if its not maroon it says A&M. You really need to admire the schools pride, we just called our school “Camp Champ”, haha. (It was a good place.)
A&M has so much pride, its admirable. Everyone shows up for the football games, everyone knows the schools cheer, its a community. There is a lot of tradition, a lot. Each year, A&M builds their infamous bonfire. In November 1999, tragedy struck the engineering students who were constructing the bonfire. 12 students died, coincidentally enough as A&M is known for having the 12th man.
A Memorial has been built in remembrance of those twelve students and to honor the tradition that A&M stands for. The Memorial consists of three elements:
1. The Traditional Plaza: This is the entrance of the memorial. Here sits a vertical wall which serves as a barrier between the outside world and the memorial. The wall is engraved with The Last Corps Trip which is recited each year before the bonfire lighting.
2. The History Walk signifies the 90 years of the bonfire tradition before the tragedy in 1999. 89 stones compromise the timeline, beginning in 1909. Each stone consists of an amber light which signifies the lighting of the bonfire each November, except in 1963 when JFK was assassinated (signified with a black slab). There are also three other bonfire related deaths which occurred in 1955, 1982 and 1996 which are also acknowledged in the walk.
3. The Spirit Ring. The ring signifies the students who lost their life as well as those who were injured in the collapse. The ring itself has a 170 foot diameter (the same distance that is erected around the Bonfire stack annually) consisting of twenty-seven granite blocks which recognizes those injured in the collapse. Surrounding the ring are twelve portals, representing the students who lost their lives on that tragic day. Each portal holds a students portrait, his / her signature and a written reflection. Each portal is extending from the center of the ring towards his / her hometown.
The inside of the spirit ring sits a black-granite marker which represents the center pole of the bonfire. The marker is engraved with the date and exact time that the bonfire collapsed.
Whether you attended a big school, small school or no school at all there is great admiration in the spirit and remembrance of A&M.
For More Info: http://bonfire.tamu.edu/memorial
