Doug Kerr
Well-known member
One of the many traditions at Texas A&M University is the Aggie Bonfire. Starting in 1909, this bonfire was lit every fall as part of the rally for A&M's most important football game, against arch-rival University of Texas. Only in 1963 was the event not held, out of respect for President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated just a few days before the bonfire was scheduled to be lit.
Over the year, the design of the bonfire reached epic proportions, and an elaborate organization emerged to build it.
For those interested in more detail, there is a nice piece on Wikipedia, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggie_Bonfire
In 1999, the structure collapsed during its erection, resulting in the deaths of 12 participants: 11 current students and one alumnus (9 men and 2 women).
The number killed, horrifying in its own right, was made especially ironic by the numeric congruence to another important Aggie tradition, "The 12th Man", under which the Aggie football team is held to comprise 12 men, 11 on the field and one manifesting the spirit of the university (a physical realization of which is that all student attendees stand for the duration of each home football game, metaphorically representing that each student stands ready to go to the field to substitute for a disabled player).
In 2004, the university dedicated the Bonfire Memorial, a striking multi-phase stone structure intended to honor those killed and injured in the 1999 collapse (as well as several other students earlier killed in in fire-related incidents).
The final stage of the memorial is the Spirit Ring, a structure evocative of Stonehenge, with a stone ring on which stand 12 portals, each dedicated to one of the 12 who lost their lives in 1999. Each portal is oriented in azimuth toward the person's home town. The stone segments of the ring itself represent the 27 students who were injured in the collapse.
Carla and I were in College Station, Texas, the home of A&M, this past weekend to attend the graduation of Carla's granddaughter-in-law with both a bachelor's and a master's degree in accounting (no bean can now evade counting). She and her husband took us and some other visiting family members to the Memorial late the afternoon we arrived. It was an incredibly moving experience.
This is what I decided to do with a shot of three of the portals:
Over the year, the design of the bonfire reached epic proportions, and an elaborate organization emerged to build it.
For those interested in more detail, there is a nice piece on Wikipedia, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggie_Bonfire
In 1999, the structure collapsed during its erection, resulting in the deaths of 12 participants: 11 current students and one alumnus (9 men and 2 women).
The number killed, horrifying in its own right, was made especially ironic by the numeric congruence to another important Aggie tradition, "The 12th Man", under which the Aggie football team is held to comprise 12 men, 11 on the field and one manifesting the spirit of the university (a physical realization of which is that all student attendees stand for the duration of each home football game, metaphorically representing that each student stands ready to go to the field to substitute for a disabled player).
In 2004, the university dedicated the Bonfire Memorial, a striking multi-phase stone structure intended to honor those killed and injured in the 1999 collapse (as well as several other students earlier killed in in fire-related incidents).
The final stage of the memorial is the Spirit Ring, a structure evocative of Stonehenge, with a stone ring on which stand 12 portals, each dedicated to one of the 12 who lost their lives in 1999. Each portal is oriented in azimuth toward the person's home town. The stone segments of the ring itself represent the 27 students who were injured in the collapse.
Carla and I were in College Station, Texas, the home of A&M, this past weekend to attend the graduation of Carla's granddaughter-in-law with both a bachelor's and a master's degree in accounting (no bean can now evade counting). She and her husband took us and some other visiting family members to the Memorial late the afternoon we arrived. It was an incredibly moving experience.
This is what I decided to do with a shot of three of the portals:
