What would the student body have to do to bring back the "official and on campus" bonfire traditon. Could it be done?

Not while litigation is still on-going.

So when the litigation is over, does a campaign to bring it back work?

By the time litigation is over, everybody who knew Bonfire as it was on campus will be a good deal away, making it much more difficult to bring Bonfire back to campus, in my opinion.

The pending decision in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will go a long way toward determining when the litigation ends. I have written on this issue in the past, so I won't repeat myself.

However, even when the last lawsuit is settled or decided on appeal, Bonfire still faces an uphill battle.

The biggest hurdles are:

1. Indemnification. Getting an insurance policy for this kind of unique risk will be expensive, very expensive, perhaps prohibitively expensive.

2. Institutional resistance.

• Top-level administrators, the deans and vice-presidents, are well acquainted with colleagues who have been sued over the 1999 tragedy. Who wants to step forward and put himself in the firing line for a tradition that was never popular with a segment of the faculty?
  
• The same people are wary of the "bonfire culture," which they regard as resistive of institutional control. No administrator wants to be told that Bonfire is a student tradition, built by students, run by students, and immune to control by the university.
  
• Aside from safety, Bonfire created its share of headaches for the university when it was a recognized tradition. Knocking on dorm doors at 6 a.m., students skipping class or falling asleep during Push Week, and a litany of alcohol problems are only a the few side effects of the Bonfire tradition that many in the university will cite as reasons never to let the tradition return.

3. Remember Bonfire 2002, the over-engineered project that forecast $2 million to bring the tradition back to campus? Will D.'s design certainly proves that the structure can be built for much less that that, but if the university decides to go with a less-costly approach, it will have to explain why the "Bowen Bonfire" projections were wrong. Do less and it looks like they're cutting corners.

4. Where to you burn it? With the memorial in place, are the polo grounds big enough? Texas A&M has lots of land, but the people I've talked to say there's no room for it on the West Campus. However, that was while George W.'s presidential library was a possibility. There are other pieces of university property, but none that would allow a dorm student to change into his grodes and walk out to stack site.




[This message has been edited by DualAG (edited 10/29/2006 1:27p).]

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4. Where [d]o you burn it?

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What about that big ol' field out where Bush did his skydiving? (Only problem is that it's a pretty long walk from Northside.)

wwhat about the drill field were it was for so many years?

____________________________________________________________
Proudest member of the Fightin Texas Aggie class of 08 Beat the h*** outa tu A-A-A Whoop!!!. May bonfire forever burn in our hearts.....and may the Twelfth Man ever burn it in memory and in hope for the future.

simpson drill field? no shot in hell. not with the MSC right there, and the new life sciences building being put there. or is it the new physics building, either way, it won't happen.

duncan field? it's a parking lot now, and the houses on the other side of GBush weren't too happy with having to hose down their houses to keep them from potentially burning down


maybe we could cut down some of those forested lands in west campus and build stack in the hells gate area(if anyone is familiar with that name, not sure how wide spread it is)

The word I've alwayse heard was they moved it from Simpson because it was thought that the bricks on the MSC were "melting" or something of that sort, so theres no chance to ever have it back there.

I think if riverside has the room that would be the only other logical place to have it, although it's not really "campus".

Riverside
Shuttle Buses
Problem Solved.


Next topic

Nice Rob- I know what Hell's gate is. I bet they could find somewhere fairly easily, but after all the **** we went through when it fell, I doubt any administrater would expose themselves to that kind of liability again.

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duncan field? it's a parking lot now, and the houses on the other side of GBush weren't too happy with having to hose down their houses to keep them from potentially burning down

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They wouldnt let me on the roof to help one of my cousins the last year it was there

____________________________________________________________
Proudest member of the Fightin Texas Aggie class of 08 Beat the h*** outa tu A-A-A Whoop!!!. May bonfire forever burn in our hearts.....and may the Twelfth Man ever burn it in memory and in hope for the future.

So we've debated the location. That's probably the easiest problem to solve. Texas A&M has lots of land. Bonfire will not fail to come back because there's no place to burn it.

So what do you think about the other obstacles I cited? I'd really like to broach the subject of the Bonfire Culture.

1. It seems that the most fervent advocates of the tradition, the "we only burn it to get it out of the way for next year" group, would never be happy with anything less than what's happening with Student Bonfire now. That is, they'd never want to surrender control to the university administration.

The 100-percent student built, student led, and student controlled Bonfire led to the 1999 tragedy--a structurally unsafe project built without engineering oversight, or practically any "adult leadership."

2. The university, wary of its mistakes in the past but unable to admit them because of ongoing litigation, would never agree to allow Bonfire back without strong controls in place and ultimate veto power over the project.

3. The large group in the middle, the vast majority of students and former students for whom Bonfire was a spectator sport, used to support the students in conflicts with the administration.

If an administrator got crosswise with the Bonfire leadership, he could count on some angry phone calls from influential alumni, some of whom gave lots of money. If a professor criticized Bonfire because of its environmental damage, his office windows got egged. Indeed, Rusty Thompson's rather infamous quote in the Linebeck Commission report, to the effect that his job as Bonfire Advisor was to clear administration hurdles for the students, stands out as an example of how the administration kowtowed to the Bonfire Culture of the time.

(The accident report also wondered how Dr. Bowen, an engineer by trade, could have driven past the Bonfire stack every day for eight years and not taken a more proactive approach to engineering safety.)

These days, those people in the middle seem either indifferent of skeptical about the resumption of the tradition.

My question to those Bonfire devotees who read this forum is this: How much would you be willing to compromise in order to get the tradition back on campus? How much of the old "build it" experience would you allow to be modified or diluted in order to have the football team, the band, the yell leaders, the coaches, and the vast majority of Aggies who used to show up attend?

How much of what you consider sacred about Bonfire would you let change in order to assure the continuation of the tradition under unviersity sponsorship?

I'm conderned that, with increased opposition from Brazos County, as evidenced by the fiasco with Judge Sims for the past two years, the off-camplus tradition is on its way to a long, drawn-out, gradual death. Fewer people will probably attend this year because of location. How much longer, as the years pass, can we count on the spirit of the bulders to keep it going?

[This message has been edited by DualAG (edited 11/6/2006 11:20a).]

DualAG is spot-on. For all the reasons he listed, any future university-sanctioned Bonfire would lack the student leadership and involvement that made the tradition so meaningful. Do we really want what the university would be willing to bring back? Personally, I think it would dishonor a great tradition to affix its name to something that lacked those qualities.

So, and I'm only asking not accusing, would you rather see the tradition die completely than have it resumed in some form less than what was practiced in the 1990s?

Remember, Bonfire has a long history. At one point, it was a lot different than Bonfires practiced just before the 1999 tragedy.

At one point, when the Commandant of the Corps of Cadets was in charge, there was very strong administration influence.

[This message has been edited by DualAG (edited 11/6/2006 11:23a).]

dp

[This message has been edited by Paladin05 (edited 11/6/2006 12:38p).]

Depends on what you mean by "less than". It doesn't have to be exactly like the Bonfire we remember from 1995, but it still has to be worthy of the name Aggie Bonfire. I would rather bury the tradition than have its name affixed to some sterile event in which the university pays a company to build a bonfire and the student body's involvement is pretty much just showing up to see it burn. But, I think that is a worst case scenario.

You do raise an interesting question, which is what about Bonfire are we NOT willing to compromise in order to get it back on campus? I would love to hear what everyone else thinks about that.

Thanks for the thoughtful answer, Paladin.

You can read earlier in this thread my opinion of the "Bowen Bonfire," the year 2002 project that would have brought Bonfire back on campus for a cool two million dollars. I thought it was nuts.

Indemnification was a tough issue, but you can certainly build a safe bonfire for a lot less than that. I understand why some believe that the whole project was an exercise devoted to driving a nail in the tradition's coffin.

However, I take issue with another popular misconception that arose from the project:

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I would rather bury the tradition than have its name affixed to some sterile event in which the university pays a company to build a bonfire and the student body's involvement is pretty much just showing up to see it burn. But, I think that is a worst case scenario.

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I agree, but to my personal knowledge, that was never the plan. It was never proposed, even within that abortive $2 million fiasco, to have a corporately built Bonfire that relegated the students to spectator status.

I went to a lot of the committee meetings when this plan was being developed. Basically, the university would have hired the design engineer and the construction foremen. Students would have done the grunt work.

One telling quote from the committee chair reveals the philosophy: "When the most efficient plan called for a bulldozer to drag a log 50 feet, we'd have modified it to have 20 Aggies do that job."

In other words, students would have done most of the building, but with professional supervisors watching at every step.

Obviously, with this kind of supervision, nobody would have been urinating on another from a top tier of the stack. How important are "rituals" like that to the Bonfire experience that so many treasure?

So, once again I rephrase the question. What is important about the Bonfire? Is it the construction experience, the hard grunt labor, that is so important? Or is it the collateral experience, much of which would go away under strict professional supervision, that so many of the die-hards don't want to give up?

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I agree, but to my personal knowledge, that was never the plan. It was never proposed, even within that abortive $2 million fiasco, to have a corporately built Bonfire that relegated the students to spectator status.

I went to a lot of the committee meetings when this plan was being developed. Basically, the university would have hired the design engineer and the construction foremen. Students would have done the grunt work.

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...for Stack.

The major complaint about Bowenfire was the elimination of Cut.

Not to be pessimistic, but I'm sixty years old and don't expect to ever see another on-campus bonfire. Not after 1999, and every year there's less and less open space on campus.

I don't throw this adverb around loosely but as I see it there will never be another on-campus bonfire. And I sure hope I'm shown to be wrong on that.

I would add that I'd be perfectly happy to go yell my lungs out at an event featuring lasers (remember the use of lasers at the World Trade Center after 9/11), but that would get a bunch of people saying that tradition is based on a wood fire so I just won't go there.

Personally (not speaking for SB) I think that if a company needs to be hired to build stack on campus for safety reasons, why not hire Student Bonfire.

Yes, it would require re-structuring and hiring of employees... Most of the employees could be students on 'internships'. I think Student Bonfire, given the freedom to promote itself on campus would be a large and cost efficient way for Texas A&M to contract out Bonfire to the students..

Maybe I am wrong, but students work for companies all the time that recruit on campus. Those same companies actually work on TAMU's campus. Seems similar.

Just my thoughts.

Slim...aren't those kind of ideas usually preceded by "now, what we got to do here is..."

Jim, that idea would seem feasable, especially considering how much experience Student Bonfire has building on an ultra low budget

I'd say it's a bit of both DualAg.

The construction experience and grunt labor provides an atmosphere for the collateral experience. However, by collateral experience I mean the forming of bonds and friendships that last a lifetime and the opportunities for many of these students to do things they would never have had a chance to do. (and for whoever is about to pounce on that above statement...Yes, I know there are other activities that can provide this. And, No, not all of my friends are a result of Bonfire.)

You're asking a lot to be able to put a finger on what ONE thing makes the Bonfire Experience what it is, but the core of it is the hard work. Going through this experience teaches you how to rely on yourself as well as others to get a job done. You learn a lot about yourself when you are at the point of exhaustion and you get asked to do just one more thing that seems impossible. You learn more when all your buddies stand next to you and complete the task. And you learn even more when a group that is supposed to be your arch "Bonfire Rivals" stands next to you to help with that task. That explaination doesn't really do it justice and this is cliche, but...from the outside looking in, it's hard to understand and from the inside looking out, it's hard to explain.

Now, a lot of the things you are referring to as collateral would for sure have to go away or at least be relegated to their dorms and that wouldn't bother me a bit. However, there should still be some room for rivalries and/or good natured ribbing between and among the groups.

As leknerd said, Cut was to be eliminated entirely from the intial reports that came out and that would be a deal-breaker for me. As far as Stack, you may be right about the 20 Aggies vs 1 dozer thing. But, everything I saw indicated that student involvement would be regulated to either 1 or 2 guys leading the cranes or maybe the students would be responsible for arranging the contracts and then be hands off until it came time to light it.

Scott Coker '92

[This message has been edited by COKEMAN (edited 11/6/2006 3:48p).]

So what exactly makes Bonfire...well Bonfire? I'm sure this is different to many people, it would just be interesting to see what people have to say.

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You're asking a lot to be able to put a finger on what ONE thing makes the Bonfire Experience what it is, but the core of it is the hard work.

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I got the same impression when I read Pamala Coloff's excellent article on Student Bonfire in Texas Monthly. An excerpt:

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I had no idea just how much work was involved in building the bonfire. Students don’t believe in breaking with tradition, so they chop every tree down with an axe, which takes an enormous amount of time. If they used chainsaws, it wouldn’t be so time-intensive, but that would also break with tradition.

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I asked the original question in order to determine what is essential about the Bonfire experience and what is perhaps traditional but peripheral. In other words, what can be compromised in order to make return of Bonfire more palatable to the university community in general, and what is non-negotiable?

Another quote from the Texas Monthly story:

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Is that really something we want to embrace?” [said Sommer Hamilton, the editor of the Battalion for the fall 2003 semester]. She recalled having seen several guys at a campus cafeteria last year, in work clothes, who had just left the off-campus cut site; rather than using silverware, they ate with their hands, as is Bonfire custom. “It seemed outdated,” she said. “It didn’t seem to fit with what we were trying to do at A&M.”

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So, again I ask, what is the baseline? Alcohol is undoubtedly gone. So is horseplay at cut and stack site, or so you guys say. Hazing? Do people still use ax handles as part of the “pass down” ritual? (I don’t expect an answer).

One of these days the litigation will indeed end, and all of us who want to see the tradition return will have to tell the university exactly what kind of tradition we’re seeking to bring back.

Cokeman gave a pretty good answer. Anyone else?

[This message has been edited by DualAG (edited 11/7/2006 7:59a).]

Just a point of fact about the chainsaws versus axes deal. It's not really a tradition thing (well I guess now it is). The story I have always gotten is that at one point, in the 60's I think, everyone brought out chainsaws. That resulted in not enough work to go around for all the people that came out. So out came the axes. Now everyone had a chance to kill a tree and the work could be spread out over a longer period of time.

Any of you Bonfire historians feel free to correct that.

Scott Coker '92

just another though... Aren't axes be slightly safer too?

I mean think about it...the damage that could result from and axe versus chainsaw.. neither is 100% safe but it seems that an injury resulting from an axe would be a cleaner wound and easier to repair than the result of a chainsaw...

I have used both and prefer an axe becuase I can better control the progress..there are too many mechnical things that can go wrong with a chainsaw in my opinion.

Yes, it is faster... but at what price?