its on one (or several) of the old pages. in the mean time:

http://www.tamu.edu/bonfirememorial/documents/ChipThiel.pdf

Thank you. also idk how many people have heard or seen of this video, but it is really cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKN_pWXek4M My friend showed it to me, someone is making a documentary on bonfire, this is just like a clip, I hope she makes the entire thing.

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NoAC. One of the oldest tradditions would be bonfire. But thanks for playing.

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You specifically said the date was a tradition obviously showing your age since you don't have to go back very far at all to find it played at a different time.

Let's just take this one sentence at a time

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I heard rumors a few months ago that A&M was thinking about bringing Bonfire back on campus and then found out they haven't even looked for a site, much less figure other details out.

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First of all- "Rumors". You heard "rumors". Not truth. rumors.

Let's just take this one sentence at a time

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I heard rumors a few months ago that A&M was thinking about bringing Bonfire back on campus and then found out they haven't even looked for a site, much less figure other details out.

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First of all- "Rumors". You heard "rumors". Not truth. rumors.

Let's just take this one sentence at a time

"I heard rumors a few months ago that A&M was thinking about bringing Bonfire back on campus and then found out they haven't even looked for a site, much less figure other details out"

First of all- "Rumors". You heard "rumors". Not truth. rumors.

"At this point, I have lost ALL respect for Texas A&M."

Bold statement. Especially if you work on Student bonfire all the time. no respect, huh? seems you'd have to have respect to invest that much time.

"They just want to make themselves look good and as far as I'm concerned, they don't have tradition."

really? aren't you partaking in a tradition by being involved in a student bonfire?

"What Texas A&M doesn't realize is that Aggie Bonfire will ALWAYS, I repeat, ALWAYS be built and burned every year by the Student Bonfire organization"

Don't underestimate what Texas A&M "realizes". They know.

"it just shows how little A&M cares."

Once again, BOLD. I defend that if A&M didn't "care", they would have put up another bonfire the next year and never "cared" to show respect for those that lost their lives carrying on our traditions.

Look, I may be wrong, but while you're entitled to your own opinions, so am I. I encourage you to be careful with your words and perhaps save your personal rants for your journal and not a public blog....Rants which were, none-the-less, offensive to those who DO "care" and hold the "traditions" of A&M dear to their heart.

I am very split on what is right here because on one side you can think the right thing is to no longer ever do the bonfire out of respect. But at the same token some see that the way to honor those who passed away in 1999 is to continue to build the bonfire because they loved to but the bonfire... It's a very split argument and I don't eve know where I stand. I know I would love to see the Bonfire back on campus but I don't want that action to offend anyone either. The one thing that I do know 100% is that Tradition is dying at Texas A&M... It has been slow but since the bonfire fell tradition is dying. In athletics it used to not matter much whether A&M was good or not (better if we were good) the Bonfire was something we could rally around and traditions stayed strong. Now we have been on a fairly weak streak in athletics (esp. football) and without the bonfire Traditions dies a little more every year.

I was a fish when we built it and it fell on us. I also remember we were given an opportunity to vote and give our opinion on the possiblity of Bonfire returning to campus. The stipulations were that there would be no cut and it would be erected by a construction company with student help. Everyone I knew (most of which rode stack to the ground) were against that. I hope the off campus bonfire continues to do well, but it will take a lot to get back to the level of widespread teamwork, friendship, and family it represented 10 years ago. BTHOB

Frankly, the best thing former students could do to help bonfire is to come up with a means to insure it somehow, as in literally find a way to provide an insurance policy for it, so it doesn't represent such a huge legal liability for the university in the future.

Take the sip laywers and legislators out of it, and you have a solution.

Not true! It's beyond that. The company the University hired to write a safety manual couldn't even get that effort insured. Short of possibly Lloyds of London,insurance is probably out of the question.

Gig'Em & God Bless

i know that this may be a stupid question but how can one not get a safety manual insured? Am i missing something here on how that is done?

It's the possibility of the writers being sued because of something in the manual causing an unsafe practice or something being left out which results in an accident. In our current law suit happy society any instance such as these will result in legal action,count on it.

Gig'Em & God Bless

ah. thank you. that was the angle that i was missing. and i thought that they could put a warning clause into those things that would protect against that. i may be wrong though

It would be great to have Bonfire back on campus in one form or another. I never would have guessed 10 years ago we wouldn't have it back yet.

if the rules are not followed, it won't matter any way... Bonfire fell because the student leaders and the administration allowed things to happen that should have happened- because they knew the "real" way the "old army" way of doing things and we lost the lives of twelve beautiful and talented young men and women- and had numerous injuries- some of which those folks are dealing with today as a result of that

I miss Bonfire so much I cannot put it into words- but until we can be absolutely sure there is a safe plan in place and oversight to make sure ALL rules are followed to the absolute letter of the law ALL of t he time, I am unwilling to support putting peoples safety and lives at stake

some of the folks on here bring that attitude that scares "to heck with what YOU want, I want it and it WILL be done- no matter what"... which is the attitude that got us where we are now

I agree. I empathize. And I think what's going on in Robertson County has done a fantastic job to achieve those ends... but I'm admittedly very biased pro. At the same time, I'm conflicted because I'm simultaneously proud and afraid of the fact that it seems that, like you said, no matter what, Bonfire will continue. As highly as we speak of and cherish Aggie Spirit, like any other motivating force it can sometimes be misdirected.

I have found some solace at least in this thought: There's no correct way to say it, but in a very horrible way a positive to come out of the fall of Bonfire '99 is that since so many aspects of it are easily related to, it acts as a stark reminder of the hazards brought about by excessive hubris, which anybody is capable of, and hopefully it goes a long way to prevent such a tragedy from repeating.

Now that's not by itself enough to make a difference in practice but it motivates changes to encourage safety (which has and is taking place), its enforcement, long-term organizational forethought, and a need for structural redundancies (which are being actively employed each year).

Experience has taught me there's no price you can put on a human life, but tragedy is a part of life and we can at very least learn from it, if only how to be humble.

Excuse me while I put my soapbox back in the closet.

The Aggie Spirit has gone nothing but downhill since the fall. Some traditions are no longer tolerated. Seemingly, A&M has slowly done away with other traditions it deems "uncouth" (*sp). Yeah, maybe we were a bunch of rowdy boys back in the day. But that's what brought us all together. We got out, did things, whether good or bad, as a group. Some of these undesirable things brought the dorms close. Yeah we had our rivalries, but if push came to shove, we knew those same dorms we'd tassled with during the year would have our back. That's exactly what the bonfire does. It's not about burning it. It's not about beating the hell out of tu. It's about one thing. Bringing together an entire campus for one cause. The cause? That we will stand behind our school as a force, through good and bad, whether win or lose, and no matter what, we do it together. Brothers and sisters alike will celebrate, lament, cheer, and loathe. But we used to do it as one.

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Since A&M has scheduled the game at home against Baylor to take place on the Saturday before the t.u. game, the current burn date, I say what we need is a large scale student demonstration in support of Bonfire at the game that weekend. If the game is early all we need is for every student involved in Bonfire to wear shirts inviting people to come to Burn that night. If the game is late in the evening, then we should, in a respectful manner, make known that Burn will take place that night and incourage people to come out and support one of the oldest tradditions in Aggie history instead of watching a game that is being played on a weekend that Aggies have never played football on.

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Here's a thought: Move burn.

Let Aggies participate in two of A&M's greatest traditions instead of making them choose one.

already been moved. burn will be the tuesday before the tu game. just fyi, burn wasn't already scheduled the saturday before... it was only assumed because it has been for a few years.

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This year makes a lot of sense to bring it back, 10 yrs since the fall.

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"Are you going to do something or just stand there and bleed."

There's absolutely no way it happens on campus this year. This isn't something that is going to be thrown together with a few weeks of planning.