“There’s not another Aggie group in really the four state area. There’s one in Nebraska, in Omaha. But we really encompass the western part of Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, so if any Aggies want to come from there we have some Aggies in our club that live 300 miles away. We’re not unfamiliar with driving long distances when you live out in the part of the country. People are very intentional about wanting to honor that piece of their history.”
Mary Helen Olsen, Class of 1979
Rapid City, South Dakota
“We live in a city called Dammam but we live as pretty much all the other expats do in Saudi Arabia, we live inside a compound. It’s basically a city inside some tall walls with guards and barbed wire. We have a house here inside the compound so we’re just having people over, we have our barbecue grill that we brought from the U.S. and we’re just going to have people over and have a backyard with fajitas. I think we’ll probably have about 15 people. Laid back, kind of atmosphere. Since we moved here about six months ago we don’t know anybody else in the group except some of our neighbors who are Aggies.”
Joy Miletic, Class of 2000
Saudi Arabia, Aramco Camp
“We have people come in from over 100 miles for muster. We do a fairly traditional ceremony, we’ll do a candle lighting for roll call. We’ll have approximately 40 Aggies who will be attending. We’re blessed with a young man who’ll be entering the Aggie band this coming fall. Two of his classmates for the last couple years have been doing Silver Taps for us. They’re musicians, he’ll be in the band. We have a speaker coming in from Walla Walla, which is about 60 miles away, Col. Lt. Tim Vail, Class of 2006, does Masters work there at A&M. We’re really excited. This will be the biggest Muster we’ve ever had by far.”
Gary Hickman, Class of 1982
Kennewick, Washington
“This was my first trip to France and to Paris. The Eiffel Tower is the most iconic statue in Paris. It was the only place that came to mind when thinking of a place that so many would know. As you may know, The Eiffel Tower lights up after dark. I thought it would be a beautiful backdrop for a beautiful occasion such as Muster.”
Sorrell Long, Class of 2003
on vacation in Paris, France
“We’ve averaged about 1,300 people over the last three years, we’re expecting between 1,200 and 1,400 again this year. It differs from the campus ceremony in the fact that we don’t necessarily have the 21-gun salute, we don’t have the color guard. We do have the candle lighting ceremony and we’re able to make it a little bit more intimate. For example, in Houston, we do ask our families to share a picture of their loved one who has passed and we include that in our Roll Call. We’re able to add a little bit of a personal touch. We’re also able to be directly in contact with the families of loved ones as well. We have about 188 names that will be called on our Roll Calls this year and between my family liaison and I, we’ve talked to probably about 100 to 120 of those between the two of us. So we’re able to actually interact just like with the university having the representative the day of, we’re actually able to have someone as well not necessarily on the day of, but we do have the family liaison and myself talk to the families. Find out a little bit about their loved ones if they’ll share with us and also be able to add that personal touch of that final memory for their loved one.”
Amy Blaase, Class of 2003
Houston, Bayou City Event Center
“We’ve picked a barbecue restaurant called Lucille’s and so it’s kind of cool. It has a nice oudoor patio setting so it reminds us of A&M. It’s got everything from the iced tea and the pint glasses. They give us our own private patio outside. Last year we had about 65, 70 people that came. And so it seems it’ll be a pretty good crowd. And of course you get young and old alike. Some are fresh out of school, some have been here for a while. There’s a couple that are interns. I got some emails here recently saying, ‘Can we join you for your Muster? We’re interning at some company close by and heard about you.’ We’ve got a couple military bases around here and so we’ll draw from those folks as well.”
Tony Daugherty, Class of 1985
Sacramento, California
