By Krista Smith ’09
It’s a clammy Sunday morning in
Orange, Texas. The sun has refused to show its face, and the grayness
of night seems to linger even at 9 a.m. But the dim surroundings
don’t dull the enthusiasm of the members of the Orange County A&M
University Mothers’ Club. Along with
their spouses, they’ve spent the last several hours cooking a small
breakfast feast at a pavilion nestled inside of Orange’s Claiborne
West Park for several hours.
The spread the group has prepared is
stretched across card tables–bowls of grapes, oranges, peaches,
watermelon, cartons of doughnuts, stacks of breakfast burritos and
cups of coffee, hot chocolate and orange juice. The stillness of the
morning is broken as three chartered buses pull up outside of the
wooden pavilion, their doors swinging open to reveal the soon-to-be
diners for whom the Aggie moms have cooked:130 Ross Volunteers.
The Orange Aggie moms have fed the Ross
Volunteers, a division of the Corps of Cadets and the oldest student
organization in Texas, for the last seven years as the group passes
through the border town on its way to escort King Rex in New Orleans’
Mardi Gras Rex parade.
Sharon Johnson, treasurer of the club,
said the breakfast has become one of the biggest events the club
participates in each year. Orange’s A&M Club provided the meal
to the cadets for several years, but the Aggie Mothers’s Club took
charge of the breakfast when the A&M club disbanded in 2001,
Johnson said.
“It’s
a part of our bonding and fellowship with each other,” she said.
To prepare for the meal, the club met
at Claiborne West Park at 6:30 a.m. with their supplies: 17 dozen
doughnuts, 35 pounds of sausage, 35 dozen eggs, several bags of fresh
fruit and various beverages. Several of the Aggie fathers also helped
the effort by bringing generators, cooking food over the pavilion’s
open grill, and setting up tents.
The breakfast is a meal the cadets
looked forward to on their long road trip, especially since their
buses departed College Station at 4 a.m.
“We’ve been marching in the parade
for over 50 years,” said Steven Strube, commanding officer of the
Ross Volunteers. “The Orange County Aggie Moms have been kind
enough to put on this breakfast for us for the last several years.
It’s a welcome breather on our trip.”
The Ross Volunteers arrived in New
Orleans later that afternoon, where they spent the night in a
gymnasium on Belle Chasse Naval Base, an upgrade from last year’s
lodgings in an airplane hangar, Strube said. The group had plans to
lunch with the New Orleans A&M Club before performing its duties
in the parade through the French Quarter on Mardi Gras.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Strube said.
“People enjoy what we do, and we get to show a little bit of what
Texas A&M is about.”
Strube said 72 junior cadets are
elected into the group by senior Ross Volunteer members each year
based on their academics and service to each other and the
university. The Ross Volunteers serve as the honor guard of the
governor of Texas, as well as perform 21-gun salutes at Silver Taps
and Muster, and welcome dignitaries to the university and the state
of Texas.
The array of food had been wiped
away–with the exception of a small bowl of fruit– as the cadets
presented the club with Ross Volunteers fleeces and coffee mugs as an
expression of their appreciation. But before the group could board
its buses, the Aggie moms gave the
cadets a small present of their own–a selection of Mardi Gras beads
donated by the New Orleans A&M Club.
“They're just so appreciative,”
Johnson said, as the buses carrying the cadets–and their
beads–pulled out of the park. “You couldn’t ask for a more
polite, respectful group of young people.”
Krista Smith ’09 is a student
communications assistant at The Association of Former Students. To
contact her, e-mail at KSmith09@AggieNetwork.com