Texas A&M to mark 25th anniversary of campus bonfire collapse that killed 12

The first, ominous sounds came from deep within the massive stack of logs in the darkest hours of the Texas night. Witnesses described hearing the stack of thousands of logs moan and creak before the crack of the center pole as it snapped, then collapsed.

More than a million pounds (450,000 kilograms) of timber tumbled. In an instant, 12 people were killed, dozens more were injured and a university campus rooted in traditions carried across generations of students was permanently scarred.

Texas A&M University is set to mark 25 years since the log stack collapsed in the early hours of Nov. 18, 1999. It was being built in preparation for the annual bonfire ahead of the Texas A&M-Texas rivalry football game in College Station.

The school will hold a Bonfire Remembrance ceremony at the site of the tragedy on Monday at 2:42 a.m., about the time the stack collapsed.

“Year after year, Texas A&M students have worked to ensure that we never forget those members of the Aggie Family who were taken from us 25 years ago,” school President Mark Welsh III said.

The tradition

The “Fightin’ Texas Aggie Bonfire” ranked among the most revered traditions in college football and symbolized the school’s “burning desire” to beat the University of Texas Longhorns in football. The first bonfire in 1907 was a scrap heap that was set ablaze. By 1909, it was a campus event and the bonfire stack kept growing as railroad lines were used to ship in in carloads of scrap lumber, railroad ties and other flammable materials, according to the school.

It reached a record height of 105 feet (32 meters) in 1969 before administrators, concerned about a fire hazard, imposed a 55-foot (17-meter) limit. Over the years, the stack evolved from a teepee-style mound into the vertical timber formation, a shape similar to a tiered wedding cake, that collapsed in 1999.

The annual bonfire attracted crowds of up to 70,000 and burned every year through 1998. The only exception was in 1963, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The tragedy

The stack of more than 5,000, 18-foot (5.5-meter) logs toppled a week before it was scheduled to burn. The 12 who were killed included five freshmen, four sophomores, a junior, a senior and a recent graduate. Several were members of the Corps of Cadets, Texas A&M’s student-led, military-style organization that played a large role in its construction.

Rescuers, including members of the Texas A&M football team, raced to remove the logs that had trapped and crushed some of the victims. At rival Texas, Longhorns players organized a blood drive to assist the survivors.

An investigative report cited multiple causes for the collapse, from flawed construction techniques to a lack of supervision by the university over the students building the bonfire stack. The lowest level of the pile did not have proper support wiring, and excessive stress on the bottom level was compounded by wedging logs into gaps.

Campus memorial

In 2003, the school dedicated a memorial on the spot where the stack fell. It includes a “Spirit Ring” with 12 portals representing those who were killed. Each portal contains an engraved portrait and signature of a victim and points toward their hometown. By stepping into the open archway, the visitor symbolically fills the void left by the deceased.

Efforts to rekindle the bonfire tradition

The annual Aggie bonfire was discontinued as an official school event after the deadly collapse.

The school considered reviving the tradition this year to coincide with the renewal of the Texas-Texas A&M football rivalry on Nov. 30. The rivalry split in 2012 when Texas A&M left the Big 12 Conference for the Southeastern Conference, but has resumed this year as Texas joined the SEC.

A special committee recommended resuming the bonfire, but only if the log stack was designed and built by professional engineers and contractors. Some members of the public said it should not come back if it was not organized and built by students, according to tradition.

Welsh ultimately decided the bonfire would not return to campus.

“Bonfire, both a wonderful and tragic part of Aggie history, should remain in our treasured past,” the president said in June when he announced his decision.

Students have continued to organize and build unofficial off-campus bonfires over the years and plan to burn this year’s edition on Nov. 29, the night before the Texas A&M-Texas football game.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

TURIN, Italy (AP) — The ATP Finals will remain in Italy through 2030, ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi announced Sunday.

The contract with Turin was due to expire next year.

“The ATP Finals will stay in Italy for another five years until 2030,” Gaudenzi said during the trophy ceremony after home player Jannik Sinner beat Taylor Fritz in the final of this year’s event for the top eight players on the men’s tennis tour.

The tournament has been in Turin since 2021, following a 12-year run in London.

Gaudenzi did not specify if the tournament would remain in Turin or move to Milan and a new arena being built for ice hockey at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.

The Milan arena should have a capacity of more than 16,000 for tennis — providing 4,000 more seats than the Inalpi arena in Turin.

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AP tennis:

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

A group of 32 students from the United States have been selected to attend the University of Oxford as part of the prestigious Rhodes scholar program in the coming year among an international class representing more than 70 nations, scholarship officials announced.

The program provides scholarships covering all expenses at England’s storied university. The U.S. students include a Columbia University graduate who founded a group working to keep Brazilian youth in school; a Brown University student born in Mexico who has interviewed asylum seekers, and a Stanford University student and amateur boxer whose senior honor thesis focused on political violence in sub-Saharan Africa.

Nearly 3,000 U.S. students applied to pursue graduate degrees beginning in October 2025, the Office of the American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust in McLean, Virginia, said in a statement early Sunday.

The 32 recipients include students from 19 states and the District of Columbia attending 20 U.S. colleges and universities. During the application process, 865 students were endorsed by 243 colleges and universities. Committees in 16 U.S. districts then selected 238 finalists for interviews.

Ramona L. Doyle, American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, said in the statement that in addition to academic excellence, “a Rhodes Scholar should also have great ambition for social impact, and an uncommon ability to work with others to achieve one’s goals.”

“They should be committed to make a strong difference for good in the world, be concerned for the welfare of others, and be acutely conscious of inequities,” Doyle said.

The US scholars have eclectic interests

The Rhodes Trust touted the wide-ranging interests of the U.S. scholars.

The Stanford University amateur boxer, Kate Tully, from Sacramento, California, is completing a political science degree and mentors at-risk debate students. Fellow Stanford student Francesca Fernandes, of Saratoga, California, has taught physics to local high school students, sings soprano in an a cappella group and is an actress with the Stanford Asian American Theater Project.

At Brown University, Ariana Palomo, of McKinney, Texas, works at its Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice, and her research interests include immigration policy. She also is lead violinist for Rhode Island’s only mariachi group.

From New York, Luiza Diniz Vilanova, with a political science degree from Columbia, is CEO of Tocando em Frente, the Brazilian group working to keep kids from dropping out of school. She also serves on an international youth council for the United Nations agency for children.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology senior David Oluigbo has volunteered at a brain research institute and the National Institutes of Health, researching artificial intelligence in health care while also serving as an emergency medical technician. He’s also “DJ Chidi,” performing in shows in all genres of music, including a Halloween funk night.

Paras Bassuk has published research on child development while studying psychology at the University of Iowa and serving as a local LGBTQ+ leader and with two transgender rights groups. They also are a jazz drummer, bass guitarist and classical bassist.

Some schools have their first scholars ever

The U.S. students include the first Rhodes scholars chosen from Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia and the first from California’s Pepperdine University.

The Pepperdine student, Sean Wu, from Chino Hills, California, is a senior majoring in computer science and mathematics who also plays the tuba in the university orchestra. His research has focused on machine learning and medicine.

The Eastern Mennonite student, Meredith Lehman, of Dover, Ohio, has done research on cancer drugs funded by the National Science Foundation while majoring in biology and political science. She’s also active in the Virginia Young Democrats and provides legal services to asylum seekers.

Four recipients are from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, the most selected from the service academy in one year since 1959. One of them, Sarah Cao, from Plymouth, Minnesota, is part of a collegiate skydiving championship team at West Point.

Another U.S. Military Academy student, Gabriella Sorrentino, of Monroe, New Jersey, is a member of West Point’s boxing team and a philosophy and American history major whose research is due to appear in an upcoming book about West Point’s first black graduate.

Coe College in Iowa had its first scholarship winner in more than 53 years and North Carolina’s Davidson College placed a scholar after 25 years without one.

The Coe College student, Katherine Ameku, of Independence, Missouri, is a senior majoring in mathematics and statistics who is also Missouri’s youngest elected official. She serves as a Democratic precinct committee member.

Davidson College student Madeline Dierauf, a senior from Pisgah Forest, North Carolina, hosts weekly arts events on campus and has researched musical folk traditions. She’s also a professional fiddler and bluegrass musician.

The scholarships have a long history

The sponsorships were created in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes, a founder of the diamond mining and manufacturing company De Beers. The inaugural class entered Oxford in 1903 and the first U.S. Rhodes scholars arrived the next year. Scholars pursue advanced degrees in subjects ranging from social sciences and humanities to biological and physical sciences, according to the trust.

The Rhodes scholarship is “the oldest and best-known award for international study, and arguably the most famous academic award available to American college graduates,” Doyle said.

Sunday’s announcement brings the total number of Americans selected for Rhodes scholarships to 3,674 representing 329 colleges and universities, the trust said, noting 675 U.S. women have won the scholarship despite only having been eligible to apply since 1976.

The scholarships are typically for two to three years, but may extend to four. The award covers all fees, a living expense stipend and transportion between England and the recipient’s location. The scholarship is valued at about $75,000 annually, reaching to about $250,000 for scholars who remain in their departments for four years. —- Hannon reported from Bangkok and Hanna from Topeka, Kansas.