Ring of Fire

It was one of the most passionately observed traditions on any college campus in the country. Then, on November 18, 1999, a week before it was scheduled to burn, the Texas A&M Bonfire collapsed in the middle of the night, killing twelve Aggies. Ten years later, as the university continues to wrestle with the tragedy—and debate whether Bonfire should ever return to campus—the students and alumni who chopped logs, hauled timber, and built stack talk about what they saw, what they lost, and how their school was changed forever.

by Pamela Colloff

November 2009

(Page 6 of 6)

RANDY MCCOWN [Wide receiver] Matt Bumgardner was my roommate, and whenever we couldn’t sleep, we would stay up talking, running plays. Bum would say, “If you ever get in trouble, just throw it up and I’ll get it.” I thought of that when we were down three points in the fourth quarter, with five minutes left on the clock. I threw it up, and sure enough, he caught it.

CHRIS VALLETTA I remember Matt going up for it. It was like I was watching him in slow motion. I saw him leave his feet, and the ball was in the air, and I knew for a fact that he would catch the ball.

JAMES BROWN Matt Bumgardner caught the ball in the end zone, and then Brian Gamble recovered that fumble at the end of the game, and then it was over.

LESLIE GRAHAM KIRK There was absolute pandemonium when we won. Everyone was crying.

PAUL “ALEX” JONES That revived our spirit, like a jump start to the heart.

“A&M is less of a school without it.” Six months after the collapse, a five-member commission created by the university to study the incident issued its report. The commission identified two core structural problems that contributed to the collapse—“excessive internal stresses” and “weakened containment strength”—as well as a “cultural bias” at A&M that fostered “tunnel vision” about Bonfire’s risks. “The collapse was about physical failures, driven by organizational failures, whose origins span decades of administrations, faculty, and students,” stated commission member Veronica Kastrin Callaghan. “No single factor can explain the collapse, just as no single change will ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again.” ¶ Bonfire was not held in 2000 and in 2001. In 2002, after two years of review, the administration determined that the cost of constructing Bonfire with the proper oversight and liability insurance could run as high as $2.5 million. Before Dr. Bowen stepped down as president that year, he canceled that fall’s Bonfire, and his successors have declined to reinstate the tradition. In response to Bowen’s decision, some Aggies began an off-campus bonfire, called Student Bonfire, which the university does not condone. It continues to this day.

RAY BOWEN After I announced that Bonfire would not be held in 2002, about three hundred students marched on the president’s home. Everyone was very polite. They stayed on the sidewalk and the big circle driveway so they would not damage the grass, which is a very typical Aggie way of dealing with conflict. I came outside and spoke with them, and no one raised their voice, although one student did say that he didn’t think I was really an Aggie. I told them that I wore the same Aggie ring as they did and that I had the same passion for A&M’s history and traditions. I talked about the last time that students marched on the president’s home, which was when [former A&M president James Earl] Rudder announced that women would be admitted to the university. I explained how that decision had transformed A&M for the good and that I hoped, someday, they would look at my decision as good for A&M too.

JIM DANIEL A&M is irrevocably changed without Bonfire. No tradition on campus defined A&M as much as Bonfire did. No tradition was as central to the spirit and heart of Aggieland, and A&M is less of a school without it.

WESLEY CAPPS, class of 2001, was a psychology major and student medic. He is earning a master’s of divinity at the Pacific Church of Religion, in Berkeley, California. When I visit campus, I don’t get greeted with “howdy” anymore. The crowds at Midnight Yell aren’t as large. People don’t remove their hats during yells and the “War Hymn.” A lot of traditions aren’t as strong as they were.

JIM DANIEL The great unanswered question is, Is Bonfire worth the lives of A&M’s students? If so, how many? One? Three? Twelve? We talk about this all the time in my Professional Military Education courses. What is worth going to war over? One man? Twenty? One thousand? It always comes down to the fact that you go to war over the principle, not the circumstances. To me, the analogy fits. Bonfire is worth it because of what you become through the process of building it. It’s worth it because it makes Aggies and it defines Aggieland. Not everything about Bonfire is bright and shiny and deserves to see the light of day. A lot of it is really gross and disgusting. But what it accomplishes for the students and for the school—there is no reproducing that. It is what makes A&M unique, and I think it is certainly worth whatever it takes to make it happen.

THOMAS KILGORE I was on the Student Leadership and Participation Committee—the committee to bring back Bonfire—and we were told that the only way we could bring Bonfire back was if we hired a construction company to go out and cut the wood. Then a trucking company would move the logs. And then another company would stack it.

MIKE RUSEK What the administration proposed was basically the equivalent of parents doing their kid’s science fair project. It took every bit of the learning out of it.

MARK FERRELL Bonfire was offensive to a lot of people. We stunk. We talked rough. We didn’t exactly fit in with the idea of a learned university. I think the administration was glad to finally have a reason to get rid of Bonfire.

STEVE CHRISTOPHERSON Bonfire didn’t contribute to the image that A&M wanted to have of a serious, top-tier university. Dr. Bowen had started Vision 2020, whose goal was to make A&M one of the top ten public universities by the year 2020. That sounds wonderful, but how do you define a top ten university? It all depends on the metrics that you judge A&M on. If the metrics were about student loyalty—well, ten years ago, I guarantee you that there weren’t ten universities out there that would have beat A&M.

DARRELL KEITH is a trial attorney in Fort Worth. He represents the parents of three students who were killed in the Bonfire collapse and two students who were injured and has won settlements against A&M and the redpots. Bonfire was a great tradition. My clients don’t oppose the restoration of Bonfire, provided that the student leaders and workers are given the appropriate professional engineering and architectural guidance. What we don’t want is a return to a fatally defective Bonfire, where arrogance and ignorance are substituted for safe design and construction practices.

RAY BOWEN I was heartsick when I made the announcement about Bonfire, because I wanted it to return to campus. But my thinking has changed since then. After reading the depositions that Bonfire’s student leaders gave in 2004, I became aware that the behavioral issues associated with Bonfire were much worse than we had ever realized. That is a pretty devastating record. Since then, I’ve felt that it would be a serious mistake to bring Bonfire back.

RICK PERRY It’s really going to be interesting when Bonfire is reintroduced on the campus again, and it will be. I will not be surprised if it happens by 2011, maybe even 2010. I think Bonfire will be back on campus. The kids will have the experience again. I’d leave that up to the board and the current administration to sit down and decide the safety parameters, the oversight, et cetera. They are very capable men and women, and I trust their judgment.

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.

LESLIE GRAHAM KIRK I felt a lot of anger when people would talk about Student Bonfire, because it seemed so silly. I mean, people had lost their lives. Miranda [Adams] was only nineteen years old. She never got to graduate, she never got to have a wedding, she never got to have children. Bonfire was a great thing, but it had flaws. The flaws ultimately were too great, and people died for it.

MANDY NAKAI LUCKE As I have hit each milestone in my life, I have always thought, “Miranda never got to do this.”

HOLLY ROTENBERRY For weeks after Bonfire fell, I didn’t sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time. Years went by, and I still had nightmares. I can honestly say that this experience changed my life forever. It made me want to be better, you know? For some reason, I was spared—so I had better do something with this life that I was given.

MARK FERRELL There’s no point in bringing Bonfire back, because it will never be the same. And it shouldn’t be—twelve people died. The good old days are gone. You know, as neat as a ’55 Cadillac might look, it gets five miles to the gallon. It’s not the best idea anymore. Everything has its time and season, and the season for Bonfire has passed.

THOMAS KILGORE Whenever the weather turns colder and I step outside and feel that crisp fall air for the first time, all the memories—good and bad—come flooding back.

CHIP THIEL I still walk with a limp. Every step I take, I feel the pain. But it helps to put life in perspective. Sometimes I’ll think, “Man, that really hurts.” And then I’ll say to myself, “So? You’re alive.” Every time my left foot hits the ground, I feel it. Every step.

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