Aggie Muster

Aggie Muster is a time-honored tradition at Texas A&M. It is a time to gather and remember Aggie’s we have lost.  To find out more information: https://www.aggienetwork.com/muster/

Here are some facts regarding Aggie Muster:

• From the late 1870s through the 1890s, cadets celebrated San Jacinto Day (April 21) on campus, and it became a campus holiday.
• In the 1900s and 1910s, former students began using San Jacinto Day as a day to gather together off campus. This included gatherings during World War I by former students stationed in Europe.
• In 1922, The Association, A&M Clubs and A&M president William Bizzell all encouraged former student gatherings on April 21. Throughout the 1920s and ’30s, A&M Clubs and Aggie groups held “April 21 Parties” and San Jacinto Day “meetings.”
• On April 15, 1923, Texas Aggie magazine urged, “If there is an A&M man in one hundred miles of you, you are expected to get together, eat a little, sup a little, and live over the days you spent at the A&M College of Texas.”
• In the late 1920s, some San Jacinto Day gatherings on campus included a roll call of former students known to have passed away.
• In the 1930s, most “April 21 A&M Parties” are held off campus by former students, across Texas and the nation, with a few international meetings.
• In 1942, the famous Muster at Corregidor took place during World War II, in the form of a list of Aggies known to be alive on the island.
• In 1943, the April 21 gatherings were named “Muster” by Association head E.E. McQuillen, Class of 1920. He sent the first Muster packets to local chairmen, and more than 500 Musters were held worldwide.
• In 1944, the first student Muster on campus took place, and former students worldwide held more than 600 Musters.
• In 1945, just eight weeks after Corregidor was recaptured, three Aggies conducted a Muster there.
• In 1946, 128 Aggies visited Corregidor and Mustered in honor of the Aggies from the 1942 Muster.
• In 2018, The Association of Former Students produced the live Worldwide Roll Call for the Absent, the first occasion on which the entire annual Muster Roll (1,640 names) was read and answered in a single location. The live Roll Call is now an annual event.
• In 2020, a worldwide pandemic prevented most Musters from being held in person. The Assocation of Former Students worked with the university, the student-led Campus Muster Committee and local Muster organizers to create Muster Live, a web hub that hosted livestreamed Muster events from around the world, Reflections content honoring Aggies on the 2020 Roll, and a mechanism for loved ones to say “Here” virtually. The Muster Live was so popular that The Association decided to continue it even after the pandemic ends.