Aggie Muster

Aggie Muster is a time-honored tradition at Texas A&M University which celebrates the camaraderie of the school while remembering the lives of Aggies who have died, specifically those in the past year. Muster officially began on April 21, 1903, as a day for remembrance of fellow Aggies. Muster ceremonies today take place in approximately 320 locations globally. The largest muster ceremony occurs in Reed Arena, on the Texas A&M campus. The "Roll Call for the Absent" commemorates Aggies, alumni and current students, who died that year. Aggies light candles, and friends and families of Aggies who died that year answer “here” when the name of their loved one is “called”. Campus muster also serves as a 50th-year class reunion for the corresponding graduating class. Some non-campus muster ceremonies do not include the pageantry of the campus ceremony, and might consist simply of a barbecue.

On June 26, 1883, alumni of Texas A&M University gathered together to "live over again their college days, the victories and defeats won and lost upon the drill field and in the classroom." The same year, the Ex-Cadets Association established the "Roll Call for the Absent". The event grew into a loosely organized annual tradition, but did not have a permanent date set aside until several decades later, when it merged with a different tradition.

In 1889, Texas A&M administrators declared that April 21 (which in Texas is known as San Jacinto Day, the anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto whereby Texas gained its independence from Mexico) would be an official school holiday. Each year on San Jacinto Day, the cadets would have a track and field competition. In 1903, then-A&M President Davis Houston encountered much student resistance to the idea of cancelling the holiday. Houston agreed to retain the holiday as long as the students promised to use it for constructive purposes.

Beginning April 21, 1903, the tradition of Aggie Muster merged with the Texas Independence celebration, featuring athletic events and banquets to honor alumni; many alumni would attend. For the next 15 years, the event would occur unchanged as a day of play, celebration, and fellowship. In 1918, though, with many alumni away involved in World War I and unable to return to campus, A&M President Bizzell encouraged alumni and the student body to gather wherever they were on April 21, becoming the first Aggie administrator to officially support the tradition.

In the early 1920s, as Aggies returned from the war and settled throughout Texas, regional A&M clubs formed to reunite alumni. With the proliferation of these groups, the Muster tradition began to have a more formal atmosphere. In 1923, the student radio station WTAW broadcast a statewide program for over two dozen Aggie groups who had gathered at points across Texas. The March 1923 Texas Aggie urged, "If there is an A&M man in one-hundred miles of you, you are expected to get together, eat a little, and live over the days you spent at the A&M College of Texas."

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