Kudos to AggieArchitect04 for the post (WE REMEMBER THEM) reminding us that November 18, 2025 marks the 26th anniversary of the bonfire collapse. I realize this mainly applies to "olds" like me but I'm curious of your memories upon hearing the news. I was driving from Columbia, MO to Manhattan, KS for a Missouri-Kansas State football game that weekend. An announcement came over the car radio - such a stunning and tragic development. And especially poignant that 12 students lost their lives that night. If you haven't already, I encourage everyone to visit the Bonfire Memorial on campus. It's very moving and reminds us of what's important in life. Here.

That was my first year living off campus. I had to be at work at 6am that morning and didn't know what had happened, but saw the aftermath while I drove past it to get to work.While I didn't know anyone personally that was killed or injured, it was devastating as someone who had been part of recent bonfires and as an Aggie.

Here.

Drove back to campus from my gf's place fairly early morning for college kids. Walked into the dorm and strangely, everyone was awake. Roommate told me what happened.

Was flying back from Australia wearing an A&M polo and got the news as soon as I hit Los Angeles. Flew into BCS that day and saw the site from the air. It was surreal. Never forget

When I was a freshman in Moses Hall, I hung out with Keith Ebanks, the brother of Michael Ebanks. Keith was a Moses Hall RAB that went all in on Bonfire. Keith was killed a few years after graduation in a car accident. That family lost two sons.

"Ever since my brother announced that he was going to go to Texas A&M, I knew that I was bound for Aggieland also. Regardless of whether I showed it or not, I looked up to him. Gerald 'Keith' Ebanks, Jr. ('89) was my brother. In 1994 he was killed in a car accident, leaving behind a fiance and our family." Michael Ebanks

That was my freshman year. We had a party at our house off campus. I found out the next morning when I woke up and turned on the local news. I went to the site after my first class, it was shocking and surreal. Such a solemn day on campus.

My buddy took some friends back to their dorm room that night and saw the fire trucks and ambulances headed that way. He didn't know what was going on until the next morning.

That was my junior year (Class of '01). I was A-Batt 1SGT. I had been out to the site the night before.

The Combined Band SGM called me and the other first sergeants and told us what happened, and to get our people out into formation and take roll. I went next door to my CO's room, but he wasn't there. I told his old lady what happened, then when across to the XO's room. His old lady was a paramedic, and had already left to go to assist at the site. The XO was just staring at his TV, which was on the closed circuit feed of the Bonfire site. Everything was black.

I ran upstairs and talked to the B-Batt 1SGT, and we decided to get everyone out by pulling the fire alarm (we'd all gotten great practice with that just the year before). I called the facilities number and told them I was pulling the fire alarm for Dorm 9 to get everyone outside for roll call.

We got both outfits formed up and had platoon leaders take roll for all their people. We were all accounted for (the CO's old lady knew he was safe). When I told everyone to go back to bed, one of my platoon sergeants told me his sister was supposed to be on stack that night. A few of us jumped in my car (I had somehow managed to find a spot in Zip Lot next to the band room) and we went to the site to check on her. She was there and unharmed; she had come down and was walking away from Stack to the west when it collapsed.

Being there within 30 minutes of the collapse was surreal, and will stick with me the rest of my life.

I'm not going to lie, the anniversary is always a bit rough for me, but today is really hard. I teach at a high school near Orlando, and we lost two students in a car crash this weekend, and just found out that a lady I taught with for nearly 20 years, who retired in May, was found dead by her family this morning. Really feeling it today.

Driving to a business conference in Austin and heard it on the radio. Walked into the meeting and saw another Ag across the room I hadn't seen in years. We made immediate eye contact. Both broke into tears.

Remember it well.

It was my 5th year and camping out for t.u. tickets with a GF at the time. Started hearing sirens and people ran up to the the group camping out. Some were upset that we weren't helping out to rescue folks. Others came back and told us to stay away. Later that AM, witnessed the football players on TV helping to clear logs. I overheard days later that the 12th student to die, didn't know exactly what order they passed, succumbed to crush injuries in the hospital. I believe he was a fish at the time. I didn't know him. I am a physician now, but at the time, I couldn't understand why they couldn't save him.

The game that Friday was electric. My tea sipper HS best friend...who hadn't attended the rivalry game in 4 years of attending t.u....went to the game with me.

I was living off Tarrow at the time and heard the ambulances that woke me up. (This was before the fire station on university existed.) Thought 'must be a bad wreck'. Turned on the TV in the morning when I got up and saying there was a tragedy at a local university. Since it a Waco station thought it must be Baylor. Then I saw the stack had fallen. I was a grad student at the time and it was the day for ticket pull. The stack that I drove by everyday was fallen. That morning I was standing in line and hearing the helicopters on campus was surreal and forthose of us in line to pull we knew bonfire had fallen but not that anyone had died, so people were talking about trying to rebuild it.

I was supposed to help at stack that year but was waiting till after an archery tournament that weekend since knowing me I would injure something and not be able to shoot. My biggest concern was an archery teammate that was heavily involved in Bonfire. No one heard from her all day. She had just left the stack to head back to her dorm when it fell so she rushed back to help.

Back then people would just gather during the days, standing, leaving things in the temporary fence set up. There was no social media, there were no cell phones with cameras/video of any quality (I only had a flip phone). The way the Aggie community came together was amazing. The football team helping move logs instead of practice, the rings left at the flag pole, just to name a few things. We bought white and maroon ribbons for people to put on their quivers for the tournament that weekend.

My brother had planned to fly out from California for the Bonfire and the game and he still came but it was a candlelight vigil instead.
The game the next day was amazing and the loudest I have ever heard it, your body shook with the noise, we just had to win.

Answered phone call not long after 3am from buddy onsite when it happened to get our roommate up and to college station fast as our buddy Chris Breen '96 had been up on stack and had died from the fall

Here

I was in the 4th grade. I grew up in Houston and my mom liked the radio to be her alarm clock so we would always listen to Sunny 99.1 in the mornings. My mom especially likes to listen during the holidays for Christmas music. I don't remember any music from that day but I do remember them making an announcement. It wasn't until I got to school and my teacher (who was an Aggie) had red eyes that I felt something big had happened. Her son was in my class and he more or less tried to explain (as best as 9 year olds can) what had happened. I wasn't into college football back then but I told my parents I wanted to watch the game that week. We did and I think the seed of wanting to go to A&M was planted that day. I am the first person in my family to attend A&M.

We remember the 12. Here.

I was a pisshead in Squadron 8, dorm 10 and at 2 something AM we were all awakened by someone running in the hallway shouting that bonfire had collapsed and that people were dead. We all got up and ran out there, no corps games. It was unbelievable, still is.

This day is important to me for two reasons:

The bonfire collapse of 1999. I was so heartbroken that I cried and cried for my Aggie brethren whom I didn't even know.

My mother died exactly 10 years later on this day.

I was just about 10 years out from my A&M graduation (Class of 1989). I am an early riser for work, so I was up around 5AM this day in 1999. I was prepping my day's lunch and had the TV on to Channel 11 in Houston. I heard the word "bonfire", which got my attention. I spent the next 20 minutes listening to the news, searching out other channels for additional news, and arrived a bit later than normal at my job at American General. Terrible day.

And a few days later, I broke down in tears when Brian Gamble fell on that game-ending fumble against the sips.

I've never told this story but back then I was project engineer offshore and the wellsite representative said his kid was going to Tamu and his kid was going to be in the corps next year. He let me go in early for Thanksgiving. It wasn't but a year later this family suffered an immense loss of their son Chris Heard. Les his dad was great man and sharp. So sad still for everyone's loss that day.

I was playing poker on the promenade just outside of Kyle on the North End of Kyle Field, camping out for tickets to the tu game, when Bonfire fell.

I had graduated by this time, but was still living in College Station while my wife finished her graduate degree. I had her sports pass.

There were outlet plugs on the street light posts on that promenade, and a group of current students were playing NCAA football on a big TV right next to us. At one point earlier in the night, Jamie Hightower and one other benchwarmer came bye and played a quarter or so of EA football with those kids.

We were playing hold'em, and there was a group of drunk current students playing poker on the other side of us from the TV. I had just laughed because the dealer called "Dr. Pepper: aces, duces, and one-eyed Jacks are wild". The guys at my table laughed, and kept playing nickle hold'em like we were going to make the WSOP someday.

Right after that, a cop car screamed down Joe Routt at about 80 mps from West to East. Me and the guys at my table talked about how irresponsible it was of that cop to be going so fast down that street while there were a bunch of drunk aggies camping out for tickets. Right in the middle of that conversation, another cop screamed down the same street in the same way. At that point, we all knew something was bad, and that what was bad happened in the direction of Bonfire, and the mood of the night changed dramatically.

I walked back to my truck and drove as close to the polo fields as I could, and walked to the police tape surrounding the site of the collapse. I ran into a friend of my younger sister who was a current student and was working on bonfire during the collapse, but was luckily on the ground when the fall happened. She saw me approach and burst into tears, and I held her and talked to her for a minute about her friend who was on stack when the fall happened, who she did not know what had happened to. I later learned that her friend died. I have not talked to her since that night.

I drove back to Kyle and let everyone in my group know what had happened, and helped spread the news to everyone camping out for tickets that anyone with EMT training was asked to make their way to the polo fields. After sitting at my table again for a while, one of the guys on the TV suggested to take the workers at the polo fields some food. I grabbed him and we asked for cash donations to buy food for the people at stack. I took the money to Wataburger and asked them to give me as many Breakfast-on-a-buns' as I could buy with $64. They gave me a bunch of them, probably more money than $64 could buy. They didn't want to take my money, but I forced them too, because I didn't want to put collected money in my pocket. I went back to the polo fields and stood at the tape trying to give the food away. No one wanted it. Finally, a yellow pot came bye and took the food. I think that most of it went back to the crowd gathered around the yellow tape, because the people on the other side of the tape were not in an emotional position to eat.

The next morning, roll call to pull tickets was very somber. It was organized, polite, and everyone was very quiet, The talk at that time in the crowd was whether or not we would be able to rebuild bonfire before Thanksgiving. In retrospect, that was so absurd to even consider, but, it seemed reasonable at the time.

I miss Bonfire. I wish that we would bring it back. But I remember the events of that night like it was yesterday.

Was going to St. Joseph's in Bryan at the time and when we assembled for morning Mass that day, the priest (David Konderla who presided over St. Mary's at the time) came in wearing just his black cassock with dust all over it. He'd been at stack site since the fall. He explained what had happened and rather than the usual Mass, went into a long sermon about how we help others in times of tragedy. I was 9 at the time. When my mom (who taught at A&M for 40 years) picked my brother and I up, you could tell how hard it had impacted her as well.

I had just fallen asleep after a 6pm - midnight shift on stack, followed by a trip to Taco Cabana. My Crew Chief brother called and told me stack had fallen. Drove back to the site and stayed the next day. Depressed for the next 6 months.

Heard the news on an Atlanta radio station driving up to work at Lockheed. Guy said something like "a bonfire under construction collapsed and - people died? My goodness - how big was that bonfire?"

Pretty dad gum big, bro.