Page 6 THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1977
WED. and THUR. NOV. 30 - DEC. 1
9:00 - 5:00 by THE RUDDER FOUNTAIN
FOR INFO. CALL THE CRAFT SHOP - 845-1631
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What is
By LIZ NEWLIN
Ask an Aggie what the Aggie
spirit is. It can be over the phone, in
a plush office, on the sidewalk, in
the Grove or in a classroom. The
reaction is likely to be the same. A
pause. A sigh. If he has a senior
ring, he’ll look at it. Then a quizzical
look at the questioner. “Hum. You
can’t describe it.”
Outwardly, the manifestations of
spirit are awesome, like the sight of
20,000 or 30,000 bodies “sawing
varsity’s horns off” as the Aggie
band plays the War Hymn.
Aggie spirit includes prohibiting
other Aggies from crossing the foot
ball field at midnight yell practice or
requiring the class number of
push-ups. The spirit was also the
reason given for tearing down a
100-year-old tree in Houston. Is
Aggie spirit used as a cover for de
structive pranks and actions? People
aren’t eager to say.
“Collectively, I haven’t seen
much of a problem.. .sanity did pre
vail at the Rice game (four years
ago). But it was a pretty sticky situa
tion, said Dr. Carolyn Adair, vice
president of student affairs.
President Jarvis Miller does not
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Spirit?
include destruction in his descrip
tion of Aggie spirit. He defines it as
“Comradeship, brotherhood and a
close personal feeling toward
another Aggie; basic. It’s reflected, I
think, in concern for other people.”
Miller, a 1950 graduate of Texas
A&M, takes a philosophical ap
proach to Aggie spirit and traditions:
“What we need to try to do is look
for basic, important traditions and
strengthen them...don’t get carried
away on small things.”
Traditions and spirit seem to flow
from the same unexplained source,
and exposure to one generally leads
to developing and protecting the
other.
Joe Wright, senior yell leader,
contends the spirit develops once
students begin attending A&M.
“And I say if they don’t have it be
fore they get here, they’ll get it
here.”
Wright said the spirit is the most
organized among colleges and ‘kinda
unique.” He said he doesn’t think
about it much, but neither do many
other people.
“It’s something you have to ex
perience,” Dorothy Nunnelly,
sophomore, said. “We as Aggies feel
this special spirit most definitely
while we are at A&M, but the fact
that we will carry this love with us as
we go our separate ways makes the
Aggie spirit a unique trait unknown
to other universities across the
country.”
David Johns, senior, might dis
pute this. “Some people come to
A&M stricly for academics,” he
said. “Others have parents and
grandparents who went and are
more involved. I don’t consider my
self a ‘two-percenter,’ but I’m not a
‘one-hundred-percenter’ either.
Some of the letters to the editor in
the Battalion about the ‘good Ag’ are
kind of sickening. In a student body
of 30,000, everybody is not going to
have it.”
He theorized the “gung-ho” Ag
gies were probably like that in high
school: “It’s in their personality. I
have spirit for A&M. I don’t know if
I have the ‘Aggie spirit’.”
The nebulous, personal Aggie
spirit develops, most agree, during
a student’s college career at Texas
A&M. “You get it by experiencing it
with other people, by exposure.
Most Aggies are genuine in their
spirit, but not everyone at a football
game is,” Glenn Mayberry, junior,
said.
“The spirit is a love for each
other, a helping,” said Richard
“Buck” Weirus, executive director
of the Association of Former Stu
dents. “It really as much a fraternity
as anything else, and it has pretty
much carried on since it becamq
non-military and women came on
campus.”
The traditions, like the ring and
Muster, can be carried on through
life, he said, but they are learned on
campus. Friendships and the loca
tion, forcing Ags to create their own
entertainment, contribute to the
spirit.
“Somehow, once a student goes
here, the identification with this in
stitution influences his whole life,”
Weirus added.
Senior Stephen Poe said the spirit-
is created by the “closeness of the
Corps and traditions like Silver Taps;
we hold to. It carries bn. Former
students stick together.”
The first graduating class decided
to meet at the campus each year,
and the Association of Former Stu
dents began near the turn of the
century mainly as a job-placement
service, Weirus said, adding “They
still do it today.”
Freshman orientation to tra
ditions, which seemingly develop
into spirit, begin before the first day
of class. In addition to a two-day
summer orientation and pre
registration, Corps freshmen attend
a week-long session to learn about
Texas A&M, and about 1,300 stu
dents last year went to Student Y
Fish Camp.
“The two-day programs, orienta
tion and the people they see show
them an awful lot of people here
who care,” Carolyn Adair said.
“Fish Camp is a four-day, intensive
program. They stuff it (traditions)
down your throat, almost.
Aggie spirit, as Miller and others
said, has broadened and changed
over the years.
Battalion photo by Michael Fi
Aggie spirit stikes again in the form of an old-army spiritsignj
hung from Legett Hall. The message is pretty clear, but the j
Aggie who added the ’censored’ sign apparently wanted I
clean up Bevo’s act.
Jim Schultz, a first-year vet stu
dent in the Corps, said, “The spirit
changed. The quality is different
now with non-regs and girls. It can’t
be the same anymore. Seniors are
always going to say it was better
when they were fish. It’s not true. ”
He said their pride makes their
early college life and them
“tougher, though it may not have
been that way.
Yell leader Wright said spirit is
not waning. “Yell practices this year
are a lot bigger than last year. The
Kansas midnight yell practice (with
about 30,000 people) was maybe the
biggest in the school’s history.
Security blanket may be answer
The Aggie spirit. “It’s as hard to
describe as it is easy to identify,”
noted Weirus, and nobody knows,
for sure where it’s going. But the
spirit is here right now.
United Press Internatiunal
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — For
men or women who have everything
and don’t care what they get for
Christmas: a security blanket.
The young men marketing them
at $5 each call them “blankettes
They are 8-by-12 — inches, that is,
not feet. The word “Security” is
embroidered on each. They come in
robin’s egg blue and sapsucker yel
low.
The booklet accompanying each
blankette asks the buyer to fill out a
form, giving his or her name, age,
shoe size, favorite tuba player and
preferred sleeping attire.
The blankette is not for every
body, Blanketeers Smirnoff Divi
sion says. Gary and Alan Smirnoff
and Clifford Skolnick say their
product can be used by people who
are afraid of some unusual
asparagus, for example.
Company representatives say!
blankette is an ideal gift for |
who get nervous reading i
nitus, bruxism and other ailmei
they didn’t even know existed
Man gets ticket
for leaving cl
in lane of traffi
SAW BEVO’S HORNS OFF . . .
in one of the great contests at Taco Villa after
the bonfire!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25
9:30 p.m.-?
A WINNER EVERY HOUR
Judged by Diamond Darlings!
KTAM Uve Remote and Many Prizes ... includ
ing $10 food certificates, T-Shirts, Hungry
Glasses and Records.
JUST A FEW OF THE CONTESTS
1. Pull the bull’s tail — 6 boys & 6 girls to a team
2. The Bevo-throw
3. Packin’ & Smashin’ — How many Aggies can
cram in a Dodge Dart?
4. Bubble gum blowing contest
5. Jalapeno-eating contest
6. Chewin’ & spirtin’ contest (bring your own tobacco)
614
VILLA
MARIA
ACROSS
FROM
MANOR EAST
MALL
United Press International
GOLDEN, Colo.—Chris (
iensen was given a parking ticketl
blocking traffic by having his wks V
chair in the center of a traffick n
Police Officer Mike Walker
he gave Christiensen the tickel
cently for having the wheelchair!
the lane going against oncoi
traffic. J
The statute prohibits bicyclt
animals, skis, skates and toy vJ C
eles on a highway. Christiensen,!
is scheduled to appear bef)
County Judge Leonard L. BealDt
2 to explain in which category
wheelchair fits.
an [
Service program^
are highlighted
Publi c service programs at Talk
A&M Univ ersity are in thespoltj ^
this week in conjunction «il •
Saturday’s Aggie-Longhorn f '
game.
Displays portraying how T«
A&M University and other parti
the Texas A&M University S)|
serve the people are on
Wednesday through Sunday in
first-floor lobby of Rudder Tower
Almost every area of Tesai
touched. Besides education it ,
dents, Texas A&M aids homeM
ers, farmers and ranchers, teache
bankers and many others ini
ways. They are reached th
Texas A&M public service pro
in agriculture, engineering, l
and animal health, energy, scid
and technology.
*
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