From the recent ESPN article:

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Of the 26 dorms on the A&M campus, a mere 10 have Bonfire crews, as opposed to pre-1999, when every residence hall was represented. The Corps of Cadets also has a number of crews represented. Altogether, today's headcount is 157, several orders of magnitude less than a typical turnout before 1999, when as many as 3,000 would show up each day.

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I knew that more people came to Cut in Old Army days, but 19 times more? Was this actually typical?

157? seems suspect. If 10 dorms have crews that's barely 15 people per dorm.

turnout is definitely less than pre-99, but i dont' think by that much.

I just did some quick arithmetic, and my best guess it that on a normal Sunday (as in not first cut or dorm log when there were people out there you'd never seen before/since) there might be maybe 350 non-reg guys+125 non reg girls+200 CTs or so. More like 700 on a normal weekend. At most that number is twice as high on a first cut weekend.

^ That's too high. Every crew does NOT have 50 people out each weekend. That number might be right for first cut, but on average most crews have no more than 20-25 people out each weekend.

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^ That's too high. Every crew does NOT have 50 people out each weekend. That number might be right for first cut, but on average most crews have no more than 20-25 people out each weekend.

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Is that directed at me?

Here were the assumptions that I made for a normal late 90s non-first cut weekend.

Aston 30
Mosher 20
Dunn 35
Leggett 10
Appelt 10
Hart 25
Krueger 15
Walton 40
McInnis 15
Haas 10
Schumacher 30
Neely 12
Hotard 15
Crocker 35
Moore 25
DG 15
Moses 35
Hobby 12
FHK 20 20
Lechner 15 15
OCA 10 10
Non Reg 340 139

Corps 200 10
540 149

689

The 3,000 number is way high. In 98-99, I remember that being the number frequently used for total Bonfire participation; as in, if you counted every person that put out even one day. The number of regular participants from first cut to stack was a fraction of that.

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OCA 10

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Come on, now. We showed up in bigger numbers than that!

It didn't format my table when I copied it over. That was 10 guys and 10 girls, so a total of 20.

I honestly have no recollection of what OCA numbers were like. I do remember some super-old dead telling me how back in the day (early 80s?) OCA had two yellows, one for CS and one for Bryan. I always kind of assumed that story was apocryphal.

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The 3,000 number is way high. In 98-99, I remember that being the number frequently used for total Bonfire participation; as in, if you counted every person that put out even one day. The number of regular participants from first cut to stack was a fraction of that.

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I seem to remember that number as well. And it would include "that guy that lives down the hall that goes home almost every weekend to see his girlfriend but happened to borrow a pot and come out one Sunday" and "that 6th year senior that still comes out for dorm log because it's dorm log and once upon a time he used to work on Bonfire" and "that weird kid that you go to two stack shifts because it was mid-November and they hadn't 'done Bonfire' yet".

Yeah, we actually did have 2 yellows at one point before my time. Our numbers grew quite a bit from 98 to 99. Had a yellow and 1 chief in 98. 2 chiefs in 99, and planned to have 4 in 2000.

Could this be the elusive reason why OC has two Dress Logs?

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Aston 30
Mosher 20
Dunn 35

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Today, it's hard to believe that Southside was ever that active.

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My observation has been that most of the represented dorms/crews that existed then and now are about the same size as they were back then. We just don't have as many now and lost a few of the big ones recently. Plus the Corps turnout is lower, but that seems to be changing.

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RIP Moore Hall Truckers

It explains so much.

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In 2005, when we cut the pines

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Oh yes, the Pine Bonfire. Best-smelling Cut ever! Worst Burn, though.

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I just did some quick arithmetic, and my best guess it that on a normal Sunday (as in not first cut or dorm log when there were people out there you'd never seen before/since) there might be maybe 350 non-reg guys+125 non reg girls+200 CTs or so. More like 700 on a normal weekend. At most that number is twice as high on a first cut weekend.

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Sorry, I was thinking you were talking about new army bonfire. I was like... yeah maybe half that on a really really good weekend haha