As students and faculty prepare to call the 2023 Muster Ceremony this Friday, the Memorial Student Center at Texas A&M hosts a collection of memorabilia of those who have lost their lives this past year.
Through the material and mundane, the coupling of trinkets and portraits paint the picture of lifelines that have affected other Aggies as well. As attendees of the exhibit walk through the MSC Flag Room and focus their stares upon the history of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends, a reflection of not just the human spirit is evoked through the commemoration, but that of the A&M spirit as well.
Examples of these items displayed on the tables are: a glass of liquor and cigar, marriage and family photos, newspaper clips, accolades, family-business knick-knacks, a glimmering trombone, dog tags, field guides, archived Battalion magazines, athletic and academic medals, and much more. Doctors, nurses, engineers, veterans and undergraduate students occupy all these spaces during this time.
Psychology junior and Muster Host Taylor Adkins said through the help of the families these displays are able to be possible for all to see, permitting a window to look back at happier times.
“The displays are put together by the honoree’s families,” Adkins said. “I think the families can kind of put as much information about their loved one as they would like to. I feel a lot of them do a really great job of representing who that person was and their time at A&M through the displays that they put together.”
Public Service & Administration graduate student Reed Russell, serving as Roll Call and Family Executive of the Muster committee, said his favorite part of Muster is having the chance to interact with the families of the Aggies who have passed away.
“[The families are] so excited to see these Aggies walk around and get to know their loved one,” Russell said. “Something that is so cool and the first thing that I always think about at every reflections display is how every single student who walks around and Old Ag — anybody — is how there is always something you can connect with in one of the displays, something that makes you say, ‘that’s me, I see myself in that display.’”
Accounting freshman and Community Relations Coordinator Lucas Wheeler-Irizarry said through the experience of serving under the Muster committee, a form of appreciation can be found through gestures of recognition.
“I really think you get to have the idea that I will be able to have my own legacy,” Irizarry said. “I hope that whatever I continue to do at A&M, it’ll be honored by the rest of the people that come and attend. I believe that being a part of this ceremony in the future, I know that my name will never be forgotten as much as any other Aggie.”
There are no former Aggies; we are all Aggies forever and always.
