Struck by the magnitude of the deaths of 12 of his fellow Aggies and the injuries of 27 more, Jeff Whiting felt that he needed to do something as he wandered across campus 10 years ago Wednesday.
He was a senior at the time and had a test scheduled for that morning, but his professor let class go.
So he walked to the site where the 59-foot Aggie Bonfire had collapsed.
"I remember sitting out in a field by myself for a couple hours that morning, staring at the stack and just trying to wrap my head around what happened," he said in a telephone interview this week.
On fences cordoning off the site of the tragedy, mourners had left flowers, letters and other items to commemorate the victims.
He stood up and began walking. He approached Academic Plaza and saw two students crying and hugging each other. Then, he saw more items placed at the base of a flagpole.
"Everyone else had something to put down there, and I didn't," Whiting said.
So he tore a sheet of paper out of his computer science notebook and scribbled a note:
To our fallen Aggies,
I want you all to wear my ring today
Since you who have passed will never get to experience the joy and happiness I was fortunate enough to feel, I want you all to have my ring for a while.
You will remain in our hearts forever,
Jeff Whiting '00
Then he slid his Aggie ring off his finger and placed it, one of his most prized possessions, on the ground -- leaving it there in honor of the fallen.
Ten years later, Whiting is a lawyer in Austin practicing intellectual property law. He said much of his memory of that day was a haze. He said that when he left the ring, he didn't know whether he thought he would ever get it back. He felt that he needed to leave it, he said, though he had owned it for only a few months.
A&M students may purchase their rings once they have completed 95 hours of course work. The ring is a symbol of pride, and many former students wear theirs for life.
Whiting said he knew that most of the people who died in the accident were too young to have received their rings. He figured it would have been important to them because they cared enough about their school to work on the bonfire stack.
So he walked away from the ring and didn't return until his girlfriend -- who is now his wife -- told him that she had seen a picture of it on the nightly news.
"At that point, I was like, 'Oh no, someone is going to steal it,'" he said.
He returned to find the opposite -- several others had left their rings next to it.
The number continued to grow over the next few days. The rings were eventually put in a box, and the Corps of Cadets formed an honor guard to protect them day and night.
"That was stunning," Whiting said. "The fact that other people saw that and felt the same kind of feeling that I did, that A&M means so much to them and the ring means so much to them and the lives of those who were lost meant so much to them that they were moved to put the ring down as well. It was very heartwarming and made me love the school even more."
The rings lay there for more than a month -- it's unclear exactly how long -- and then A&M officials began returning them to their owners.
The inside of each ring is inscribed with the name of the student who earned it. Current students were contacted by university administrators and former students were tracked down by the Association of Former Students -- except one.
A men's Class of 1983 ring was tied on a cross placed near the accident site. The name on the inside was scratched out.
"To date, no one has come forward to us indicating that they are the owner of the ring, and we can only assume that they wish to remain anonymous," said Kathryn Greenwade, vice president for communications for the Association of Former Students, which displays the ring in its headquarters. "That was their way of expressing their sorrows and condolences."
Whiting was unaware of the anonymous ring until contacted for this story but said he viewed its contribution as an amazing gesture. He said he was struck by the symbolism: The ring has no name and thus belongs to the students who died and the university community that continues to mourn them.
And Whiting still wears his ring every day. Before A&M football games, a video montage about the Aggie spirit briefly flashes a picture of his ring on the video board, and it reminds him of the accident.
"That gets me every time," he said.
But he said he mostly just cherishes it as other Aggies do.
"Just because I set it down out there doesn't mean I love it more," he said. "It always meant everything to me, so how could it mean more?"
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