Not even the rainy weather can dampen the mood at the Clayton W. Williams, Jr. Alumni Center, where 3,500 Aggies will receive their rings Friday, rain or shine.
Out of the 3,800 rings ordered, 3,500 rings are being delivered for College Station students, said Kathryn Greenwade, vice president of the Association of Former Students and Class of ’88. The other 300, she said, will go to the Galveston campus and the Doha campus in Qatar or will be shipped to students who are away and cannot pick up their rings in person.
Greenwade estimates 10,000 people will attend Ring Day.
“You factor in, okay 3,500 — most of them are going to have two to three people with them,” Greenwade said.
Those visitors will pass through the alumni center from noon to 7 p.m.
The fall semester has two Ring Day events, which Greenwade said is because the deliveries are timed to coincide with the end of a semester.
Greenwade said the event is and always has been a milestone for students, even if the magnitude of Ring Day has changed over the years.
“We want to have a celebration worthy of that [senior] status and until 2000 we didn’t really do a good job of that,” Greenwade said. “It wasn’t until 2000 that we started Ring Day like it is today. Prior to that, there would be a certain day that was Ring Day, and you picked up your ring but you waited in line for a really long time, and you got up there and somebody handed you your ring and there wasn’t the fun and the excitement that went with it.”
Ring Day is gaining more popularity every year, Greenwade said.
“The Aggie Ring ceremony is growing because people my age, when we got our rings, again, it was kind of unceremonious and not a big deal,” Greenwade said. “[People our age] now have children that are here and they love seeing the excitement and reliving that excitement through their students.”