Texas A&M may be leaving behind the Big 12 and its longtime rivalry with the University of Texas, but the bonfire will continue to burn, organizers of the unofficial student-run event say.
This year's lighting, staged off of Old Hearne Road in Roberston County, was delayed until Saturday, long after the Aggies' Thanksgiving game with Texas, because of the burn ban.
Members of the crew responsible for the construction of the bonfire and their guests gathered in the semi-private rural location to burn the 45-foot-high wooden structure
Eric Menn, a junior petroleum engineering major at Texas A&M, served as one of the "red pots," a reference to the red construction helmet that anyone working on the bonfire is required to wear. It was up to the red pots to decide if the tradition would continue.
"The thought never crossed our mind that we were just going to end it," Menn said. "It's about letting people come out here and have this experience."
The bonfire is bigger than the mere rivalry with that school in Austin, the students said.
"It's not about the Texas game -- it's about getting Aggies together, and keeping the spirit alive," said senior construction-science major Casey Purvis, who has been a part of the Aggie bonfire for four years.
"It's about being a part of something bigger than yourself. The work that goes into it, being an Aggie, is more important that the Texas game," Purvis added.
Although there will be no rivalry game, the bonfire will still be held in the fall before Thanksgiving.
The bonfire has always been centered around the U.T. rivalry, with the enormous pile of wood being topped by an orange outhouse with a Longhorn and other U.T. symbols painted on it.
According to Purvis, one of the few changes to the bonfire tradition will have to do with the opposing school whose symbols will decorate the outhouse.
The first Aggie Bonfire was burned in 1907, though it was not until a little more than a decade later that it began to be held in conjunction with the U.T. rivalry game. It was held on campus as an officially sanctioned university event until the 1999 Bonfire collapse that claimed the lives of 12 and injured 27. The tradition was revived in 2002 as an unofficial student-run event.
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