Issue date: 11/18/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Stephen Fogg Artifacts left at the Bonfire collapse site are now stored in a warehouse on West Campus. These include pots, axes shown left and many other items. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: File Photo--The Battalion Aggie Rings, flowers and notes were left at the Bonfire site after it collapsed killing 12 students. [Click to enlarge]

Across campus on Agronomy Road stands a sand-colored cement building. Inside are artifacts marking times throughout history. Down one particular aisle carefully preserved in boxes sit the memorials left behind in the hours, weeks and even months after the tragic Bonfire collapse.


Lining the tall shelf are more than 300 boxes filled with an important part of Texas A&M University's past.


Following the Nov. 18, 1999 Bonfire collapse, many came to pay their respects to the 12 people who lost their lives while building a beloved Aggie tradition.


Senior history major Marcie Sharp was 11-years-old at the time of the collapse. Sharp and her family watched and followed the news of the collapse from Arlington, Texas. Her parents graduated from A&M and the family had been to Bonfire several times the past years. The family made bracelets out of two small ribbons right after hearing the about the collapse, tying one maroon and one white ribbon with 12 knots to represent the 12 who were killed.


A few weeks later Sharp's family went to visit to the Bonfire collapse site, and she remembers seeing the tall fence with flowers and others items placed as a memorial to the lives lost. The tone, Sharp says, was somber as people walked around the site, taking time to look at the messages left.


The one thing that stands out in her mind is the Aggie Rings left by current and former students. All but one of the rings, in which the name was filed off, were returned to their original owners when artifacts were cataloged.


"I knew how important Aggie Rings were because my parents had theirs," Sharp said. "Seeing all the rings I knew how amazing it was for Old Ags to leave their rings in honor of the 12."


Although at the age of 11 she didn't have a ring or beautifully written poem, Sharp left her small maroon and white bracelet as a token of her sadness and support.


Larger wreaths, baskets and signs are wrapped in acid-free archival quality paper to protect them from light and dust. Banners bearing heartfelt condolences to victims, their families and the Aggie community as a whole are carefully preserved in large flat boxes.


Box after box lines the tall shelving unit in the archival warehouse. Many of those boxes are filled with stuffed animals. Each one has been carefully bagged to help preserve them and keep the mold brought by rain in the days following the collapse from spreading to other artifacts.


Pots, the helmets worn during the construction of Bonfire, are wrapped in bubble wrap and still carry the vague smell of days and nights spent at the Stack. Some pots still look as if they were never worn while others are well worn with age and use. Many bear words of grief and hope for the days to come while others were removed directly from the head of a Bonfire worker and placed in honor of the fallen.


Cinnamon stick replicas of Bonfire fill a box. Some have been lit to honor to lives sacrificed to the yearly tradition of bonfire. Others are representative of the unlit stack.


Banners range from small poster boards written by an individual to large canvases filled with the messages and signatures of hundreds.


Bible verses and poems, prayers and pictures, letters and songs fill the many boxes and show the outpouring of sorrow and love from the community and beyond.


Children from many elementary schools colored pictures and wrote messages. Old Ags, current students and strangers to A&M and the traditions wrote of their shock and sadness.


Bracelets, necklaces and rings were left among the memorials. Beaded rosaries and religious tracts left in the grass by visitors to the Bonfire site are placed in bags.


Crosses of all sizes and materials fill boxes while larger crosses are wrapped in paper and placed on the shelving. Some are only twigs bound together with string or leather. Some are planks of wood nailed together. Some have messages painted on them while others have the names of the victims carved into the wood.


Fresh flowers left at the site were gathered and composted. That compost is now a part of the flowerbeds at the memorial. Even today, when flowers are left, they are put in the flowerbeds to become a permanent part of the Bonfire Memorial.

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