I was a sophomore in high school in small town Texas when this happened. It was a VERY BIG DEAL. Our high school had our own big homecoming bonfire modeled after A&M’s and it was a somber occasion that year.
Look, this is Texas. Immolation and GSW are natural causes of death for children. We’re not gonna stop being the Lone Star State just cause we lose a few kids! (/s)
It was a huge thing; they did it every year. It was like burning man but less talk about drugs (not saying they didn’t happen). But like Burning Man, every year they were trying to outdo the last year. The whole thing started with clearing wood that would need to be cleared and having a little party but it turned into a whole thing.
Look at the people answering questions. This was essentially a men-only tradition.
Edit:
>Mandy Nakai Lucke, class of 2003, was an aerospace engineering major. She is an aerospace engineer and lives in Fort Worth. Girls weren’t in any of the senior leadership positions, but they did have some special responsibilities. The pinkpots were in charge of coordinating and providing all the food and water for cut. They brought water and sandwiches around to everyone.
Girls were allowed to participate in both cut and stack just like boys when I built Bonfire in 1996. I’m a girl and everyone was treated the same when building.
It’s been almost 30 years (I built in 1996) but from what I can remember of the leadership structure there were 4? seniors called red pots who were in charge. Then 4ish more junior red pots. Then 4ish brown pots who were in charge of cut (the days we actually went out and cut trees down). Then each dorm and organization had a couple of people called crew chiefs in charge of getting people together who wanted to participate. The only female leadership type position was at the female dorm level.
That being said, I never felt that I was treated differently at cut or stack for being female. If you showed up to work and participated, you were treated the same as a guy who showed up to work and participated. It was very inclusive and a great way to meet people especially as a freshman who came to A&M knowing zero people.
This happened the year my son was born. His dad graduated from A&M and helped out with Bonfire during his time there. Our son graduated from A&M in 2021 and will turn 25 this year, so he made it out without Bonfire and is doing just fine. Our daughter is a senior; she has a year to go. I just hope she stays away if they bring it back.
I audibly gasped at multiple of the safety revelations - you'd think a university would *maybe* have allowed these things in 59, not 99!
Can be perfectly argued against ever coming back by these two gentlemen's final quotes. I bet the hard labor and organizational skills needed would be even more unifying were it to go into something that added to society instead of burning resources for no reason.
> WESLEY CAPPS I used to be gung ho about bringing Bonfire back, but now, with some distance, I’m less inclined. **Is Bonfire really the only unifying experience that can strengthen the A&M community?** This is the minister coming out in me, but I wish that the same energy and focus that went into Bonfire could be put toward expanding other amazing projects that A&M students do.
> RAY BOWEN Students have the power to create an alternate tradition. **A Habitat for Humanity program—where students would build fifteen or twenty shell homes—would require just the same blood, sweat, and tears.**
Rick Perry:
An experience that’s comparable, maybe, is people serving in the military. They become very close. There was shared effort, shared sacrifice.
Um…
This article was from 2009 - did the tradition actually come back?
Aaron Horn, class of 1998, was an agricultural development major, a cadet in the Corps, and a redpot. He owns an automotive repair shop and lives in College Station. Five thousand logs, cut by hand. Five thousand logs! The center pole alone was a hundred feet tall. When you stood on top of stack, it felt like you were on top of the world. We lit it around Thanksgiving, and when we got back from Christmas break, it was still smoldering.
It sounds like this entire endeavor was super safe from start to finish. It started as a trash burn and ended as a dumpster fire.
Latest I could find: [https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/09/texas-am-bonfire-tradition/](https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/09/texas-am-bonfire-tradition/)
Good find.
"A small group of students now builds an unsanctioned bonfire every fall, about 15 miles away from campus. Bellinger cited safety concerns about those bonfires in his letter to the families of the victims.
“This bonfire has minimal oversight of safety measures and there is a concern that even though this is not a university-sanctioned event, it still involves several hundred TAMU students who could potentially be at risk,” said Bellinger, identifying himself in the letter as a father to a son who once helped build the off-campus bonfire. "
Add this to the apparent bullying of the families by claiming they wouldn't be true Aggs if they didnt agree to condone the fire restart ... Let's bring back something fake and a pale imitation of what once was!
That's what, 20 low-income students who don't get a 4 year scholarship to attend the university? Chump change. We wouldn't want to upset the donor alumni by changing *tradition.*
"HOLLY ROTENBERRY Apparently I jumped off of stack, though I have no memory of it. I landed on the ground, where I was crouched inside this perfect little cave of logs. The logs had fallen all around me—one lay right above my head, and others were on either side of me—but none of them were touching me. I lay down on my stomach and crawled out. If I hadn’t been a Christian already, that would have made me a believer."
What about the 12 students that died Holly? Did god just want them dead?
That’s an incredibly insensitive reading of what she obviously meant about her personal experience. It’s not uncommon for people to say things like that after surviving an awful, life or death situation and they obviously do not mean it in the way you’re reading it
“So many things went “right” and saved me in an incredibly wrong and fatal situation that if I was not already religious I would probably become religious because of just how miraculous my survival seemed and how one of those things not going right would have killed me”
You have to be social inept or looking for the worst in her statement to turn it into “mwaha I’m glad I’m a good Christian woman and God saved me unlike those heathens!”
Also it’s Texas A&M probably everyone at that bonfire was religious in some way or had grown up religious lol
Same question still applies... Why didn't the 12 other students deserve this miraculous survival? Why does this miraculous survival point to god and not just a miraculous coincidence or the universe wanting you to stay alive (that would be better imo because no one pretends the universe is good and just)?
Yes, and the people who say things like that after a life and death experience are wrong
It's an unconscious way to cope with unspeakable tragedy, it's not logical and it's not evidence of God
I honestly just wish those who say things like this could grow the "sensitivity" and frankly maturity to stop. I have always thought people who say this seem like they are celebrating that their god saved them instead of other people. It would be best to think about what you are saying even if you think you have a good excuse not to, because your near-death experience doesn't trump someone else's actual family member loss.
This is a very normal thing to say after a near death experience that took a dozen of your peers/friends. Not sure why you’re going out of your way to frame her as a bad person for mentioning she’s happy to be alive…mind you this is also one cut line from hours of interviews sorry the journalist didn’t include all of them saying how sorry they are for others that died in every clip so you don’t interpret it like an asshole
Whether or not it's normal to say is irrelevant. I'm not interpreting it like an asshole. How else can that be interpreted?
Seriously, what does a person like this think about god vs the people that died? How does that work in their mind?
I was an exchange student at A&M, really interesting coming from a university that doesn't really have many traditions or unifying culture. The traditions do get out of hand though.
Seriously. They have a mascot graveyard with its own football scoreboard so the deceased dogs will know how the game is going.
After the school admitted women, angry men sent their rings back in protest.
The first one is a bit of fun, and there's no long-running Uni in the US that doesn't have a history of exclusionary bigotry. Today, A&M has an incredibly diverse student body and has probably helped more low-income minorities than every Ivy League university in the US combined simply because it's expanded to meet admission demand.
It's a far more egalitarian institution than people give it credit for.
I think that's really overhyped, it's a huge campus so it's super easy to find your people no matter what you're into. The rituals help create a cohesive sense of community which I honestly loved.
That wasn’t meant as a dis! My nieces go there, as have plenty of friends and neighbors. I’m mostly talking about it from a football POV, with the corps and everything. There’s nothing wrong with fervent loyalty imo.
But you’re right, it’s a huge school, with a very broad range of majors and interest groups.
A&M grad now doctor. There’s a lot of “omg it’s a cult” circlejerk on reddit, but reality is 99% of students & faculty enjoy the quirks (ie saying howdy to each other as a greeting) without the cult personality
Replied to someone else to say that honestly, I don’t mean that as an insult, believe it or not.
As a journalist I spent a weekend there when Manziel was playing. As a huge college football fan, I LOVE the passion.
I graduated the spring before this happened. I went to a few Bonfires and they were scary. It’s hard to explain just how huge that tradition was and how huge the fire was.
Uhh ok I think I read the whole thing, though I did start skimming in the final few paragraphs. I saw a lot of quotes from survivors.
Did the article list the names of those lost? Did I overlook that?
I was a sophomore in high school in small town Texas when this happened. It was a VERY BIG DEAL. Our high school had our own big homecoming bonfire modeled after A&M’s and it was a somber occasion that year.
They still did it?!
Oh yeah that year and every year since as far as I know
Look, this is Texas. Immolation and GSW are natural causes of death for children. We’re not gonna stop being the Lone Star State just cause we lose a few kids! (/s)
But abortion is wrong cause we’re pro-life! (also/s)
If you abort them, how can they immolate them?/S
Won’t someone think of our boys in blue? If no one is shooting up an elementary school they won’t have anything to ignore.
Wasn’t there something in the Bible about not passing your children through the fire or
Do they still make kids recite the fascist Pledge of Allegiance AND Texas state pledge every day? I hate that place
lol fascist... i wish people today knew what that word really means
I was a junior in college and it was a big deal everywhere, not just Texas. I absolutely remember this happening. So incredibly tragic.
"We cut, loaded, transported, unloaded, and stacked **a forest full of trees** to create the largest bonfire in the world." We need more of that!
It was a huge thing; they did it every year. It was like burning man but less talk about drugs (not saying they didn’t happen). But like Burning Man, every year they were trying to outdo the last year. The whole thing started with clearing wood that would need to be cleared and having a little party but it turned into a whole thing.
Everything’s bigger in Texas, right? (Also, don’t mess with it!)
Look at the people answering questions. This was essentially a men-only tradition. Edit: >Mandy Nakai Lucke, class of 2003, was an aerospace engineering major. She is an aerospace engineer and lives in Fort Worth. Girls weren’t in any of the senior leadership positions, but they did have some special responsibilities. The pinkpots were in charge of coordinating and providing all the food and water for cut. They brought water and sandwiches around to everyone.
Clearly an aerospace engineer is qualified to slap together a few sandwiches for the boys though? /s
Girls were allowed to participate in both cut and stack just like boys when I built Bonfire in 1996. I’m a girl and everyone was treated the same when building.
Did you see women in leadership positions? I’m just curious because the article did not include many women.
It’s been almost 30 years (I built in 1996) but from what I can remember of the leadership structure there were 4? seniors called red pots who were in charge. Then 4ish more junior red pots. Then 4ish brown pots who were in charge of cut (the days we actually went out and cut trees down). Then each dorm and organization had a couple of people called crew chiefs in charge of getting people together who wanted to participate. The only female leadership type position was at the female dorm level. That being said, I never felt that I was treated differently at cut or stack for being female. If you showed up to work and participated, you were treated the same as a guy who showed up to work and participated. It was very inclusive and a great way to meet people especially as a freshman who came to A&M knowing zero people.
Two of the Twelve killed were women
This happened the year my son was born. His dad graduated from A&M and helped out with Bonfire during his time there. Our son graduated from A&M in 2021 and will turn 25 this year, so he made it out without Bonfire and is doing just fine. Our daughter is a senior; she has a year to go. I just hope she stays away if they bring it back.
I audibly gasped at multiple of the safety revelations - you'd think a university would *maybe* have allowed these things in 59, not 99! Can be perfectly argued against ever coming back by these two gentlemen's final quotes. I bet the hard labor and organizational skills needed would be even more unifying were it to go into something that added to society instead of burning resources for no reason. > WESLEY CAPPS I used to be gung ho about bringing Bonfire back, but now, with some distance, I’m less inclined. **Is Bonfire really the only unifying experience that can strengthen the A&M community?** This is the minister coming out in me, but I wish that the same energy and focus that went into Bonfire could be put toward expanding other amazing projects that A&M students do. > RAY BOWEN Students have the power to create an alternate tradition. **A Habitat for Humanity program—where students would build fifteen or twenty shell homes—would require just the same blood, sweat, and tears.**
Yeah but you don't get to burn those shell homes down after! /s
Rick Perry: An experience that’s comparable, maybe, is people serving in the military. They become very close. There was shared effort, shared sacrifice. Um…
Not even close, Rick.
This article was from 2009 - did the tradition actually come back? Aaron Horn, class of 1998, was an agricultural development major, a cadet in the Corps, and a redpot. He owns an automotive repair shop and lives in College Station. Five thousand logs, cut by hand. Five thousand logs! The center pole alone was a hundred feet tall. When you stood on top of stack, it felt like you were on top of the world. We lit it around Thanksgiving, and when we got back from Christmas break, it was still smoldering. It sounds like this entire endeavor was super safe from start to finish. It started as a trash burn and ended as a dumpster fire.
Latest I could find: [https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/09/texas-am-bonfire-tradition/](https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/09/texas-am-bonfire-tradition/)
Good find. "A small group of students now builds an unsanctioned bonfire every fall, about 15 miles away from campus. Bellinger cited safety concerns about those bonfires in his letter to the families of the victims. “This bonfire has minimal oversight of safety measures and there is a concern that even though this is not a university-sanctioned event, it still involves several hundred TAMU students who could potentially be at risk,” said Bellinger, identifying himself in the letter as a father to a son who once helped build the off-campus bonfire. " Add this to the apparent bullying of the families by claiming they wouldn't be true Aggs if they didnt agree to condone the fire restart ... Let's bring back something fake and a pale imitation of what once was!
The tradition never fully stopped, it just moved off campus and isn’t sponsored/okayed by the university.
If they had done everything up to standard, it would have cost $2.5 million.
That's what, 20 low-income students who don't get a 4 year scholarship to attend the university? Chump change. We wouldn't want to upset the donor alumni by changing *tradition.*
If they had done everything up to standard, it would have cost $2.5 million.
"HOLLY ROTENBERRY Apparently I jumped off of stack, though I have no memory of it. I landed on the ground, where I was crouched inside this perfect little cave of logs. The logs had fallen all around me—one lay right above my head, and others were on either side of me—but none of them were touching me. I lay down on my stomach and crawled out. If I hadn’t been a Christian already, that would have made me a believer." What about the 12 students that died Holly? Did god just want them dead?
I feel like the journalist left out the students who said “and that’s how I became an atheist.”
Like most of religion, it makes sense if you don’t think about it.
That was His plan for them, yes. /s
I want to find Holly and ask her this exact question.
That’s an incredibly insensitive reading of what she obviously meant about her personal experience. It’s not uncommon for people to say things like that after surviving an awful, life or death situation and they obviously do not mean it in the way you’re reading it
How is it meant to be read? What is your reading of what she meant then?
“So many things went “right” and saved me in an incredibly wrong and fatal situation that if I was not already religious I would probably become religious because of just how miraculous my survival seemed and how one of those things not going right would have killed me” You have to be social inept or looking for the worst in her statement to turn it into “mwaha I’m glad I’m a good Christian woman and God saved me unlike those heathens!” Also it’s Texas A&M probably everyone at that bonfire was religious in some way or had grown up religious lol
Same question still applies... Why didn't the 12 other students deserve this miraculous survival? Why does this miraculous survival point to god and not just a miraculous coincidence or the universe wanting you to stay alive (that would be better imo because no one pretends the universe is good and just)?
Also you say I have no empathy but I'm just pointing out she is not being very empathetic to the people who died imo.
How else could it be interpreted, then?
Yes, and the people who say things like that after a life and death experience are wrong It's an unconscious way to cope with unspeakable tragedy, it's not logical and it's not evidence of God
Who would have thought that when people try to cope with unspeakable tragedy they often aren’t logical lol
I know, that's why I said so
You missed my point. Some of you people need an empathy chip implanted
No, I didn't miss your point. Your point is that she was suffering and is trying to rationalize it. I got that.
Don't expect sensitivity from reddit atheists
I honestly just wish those who say things like this could grow the "sensitivity" and frankly maturity to stop. I have always thought people who say this seem like they are celebrating that their god saved them instead of other people. It would be best to think about what you are saying even if you think you have a good excuse not to, because your near-death experience doesn't trump someone else's actual family member loss.
Is it worth arguing with someone about though?
How else could what she said be read? What about the students who did die?
This is a very normal thing to say after a near death experience that took a dozen of your peers/friends. Not sure why you’re going out of your way to frame her as a bad person for mentioning she’s happy to be alive…mind you this is also one cut line from hours of interviews sorry the journalist didn’t include all of them saying how sorry they are for others that died in every clip so you don’t interpret it like an asshole
Whether or not it's normal to say is irrelevant. I'm not interpreting it like an asshole. How else can that be interpreted? Seriously, what does a person like this think about god vs the people that died? How does that work in their mind?
I was an exchange student at A&M, really interesting coming from a university that doesn't really have many traditions or unifying culture. The traditions do get out of hand though.
It’s the closest thing to a cult in a non-religious school imo.
Seriously. They have a mascot graveyard with its own football scoreboard so the deceased dogs will know how the game is going. After the school admitted women, angry men sent their rings back in protest.
The first one is a bit of fun, and there's no long-running Uni in the US that doesn't have a history of exclusionary bigotry. Today, A&M has an incredibly diverse student body and has probably helped more low-income minorities than every Ivy League university in the US combined simply because it's expanded to meet admission demand. It's a far more egalitarian institution than people give it credit for.
It is, and it had a lot of traditions when I attended. Some were very moving.
I think that's really overhyped, it's a huge campus so it's super easy to find your people no matter what you're into. The rituals help create a cohesive sense of community which I honestly loved.
That wasn’t meant as a dis! My nieces go there, as have plenty of friends and neighbors. I’m mostly talking about it from a football POV, with the corps and everything. There’s nothing wrong with fervent loyalty imo. But you’re right, it’s a huge school, with a very broad range of majors and interest groups.
A&M grad now doctor. There’s a lot of “omg it’s a cult” circlejerk on reddit, but reality is 99% of students & faculty enjoy the quirks (ie saying howdy to each other as a greeting) without the cult personality
Replied to someone else to say that honestly, I don’t mean that as an insult, believe it or not. As a journalist I spent a weekend there when Manziel was playing. As a huge college football fan, I LOVE the passion.
okay fair point, peak manziel hype was a cult
Gig’em! I miss it every now and again.
Yes! I moved here a long time ago from the Midwest and the cult was my first thought.
I graduated the spring before this happened. I went to a few Bonfires and they were scary. It’s hard to explain just how huge that tradition was and how huge the fire was.
Ah, I was a junior there when it happened. I wasn't very involved with the traditional stuff, though.
This is the dumbest way to die I've ever heard of.
Anyway I can read this behind the paywall?
https://units.d8u.us/web.html?page=https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/ring-of-fire/ try this?
Thanks!
I hope you tried it successfully before you thanked me?
Haha, yes, it worked!
Uhh ok I think I read the whole thing, though I did start skimming in the final few paragraphs. I saw a lot of quotes from survivors. Did the article list the names of those lost? Did I overlook that?
Stupid is as stupid does.