AUSTIN, Texas — Texas A&M University's board of regents is considering bringing back the university's tradition of lighting a bonfire to commemorate the school's first football game against the University of Texas at Austin in 13 years.
According to the university's website, the Aggie bonfire tradition represents their burning desire to beat UT Austin in football. The bonfires built by student workers each year are supposed to fall down.
“As legend has it, if the outhouse falls after midnight, it means A&M will beat Texas,” a KVUE reporter covering the bonfire tradition in 1998 said.
Ninety-two years after the first bonfire, on Nov. 18, 1999, at 2:42 a.m., the tradition turned deadly. KVUE reported the 60-foot-tall stack of logs being built by current and former A&M students for their annual Aggie bonfire collapsed. It killed 12 people and injured 27 others.
RELATED: Remembering the tragic collapse of the wooden structure being built for the annual Aggie bonfire
Chad Hutchinson was one of the survivors. KVUE spoke with him shortly after the tragedy.
“Figured out that they could cut my swing without damaging the structure and making more logs fall, and I got out,” Hutchinson said.
He said he had three open wounds that would need to be sewn up.
Five years after the accident, the bonfire memorial was built in the same spot as it fell. The university holds a remembrance ceremony for it every year.
Now, 25 years later, the university's board of regents is considering bringing it back.
“As many of you know, we're scheduled to play the University of Texas next year, in '24,” Bill Mahomes, regents chairman, said.
Mahomes said at a board meeting last November that the teams played football together for a long time in the Southwest Conference. After a 13 year hiatus, UT and Texas A&M will play again.
“We want to appoint a committee to look at options to commemorate and celebrate that,” Mahomes said.
University officials confirmed that talks of bringing back the bonfire was one of the options discussed. They told KVUE in a statement that university President Mark Welsh asked the committee to explore options and activities to welcome UT into the SEC. They say Welsh will go over ideas in may and make his decision.