Alamo Aggie | November/December 2022

HOWDY

FROM OUR PRESIDENT

Howdy Ags!

I hope our last publication of the 2022 Alamo Aggie finds you in good health and spirits. There have been many bright spots and blessings for the San Antonio A&M Club this year.

• In January, we heard from our impressive group of scholarship recipients at one of our Monday Lunches.

• We held our final Monday Lunch meeting at Holy Spirt on February 28th. This was our temporary location while construction was underway.

• In spring, our renovation project was completed. Thank you to all our donors, the Construction Committee, and everyone who made this monumental project possible.

• Monday Lunch at Aggie Park resumed on March 7th to a sold-out crowd. Guest Speakers were Porter Garner and Ross Bjork.

• The first fundraiser of 2022 was our Golf Tournament at Canyon Springs.

• April 21st, we had an outstanding Muster Ceremony with Amy Bacon as our Muster Speaker.

• Coach’s Night was held at the Witte in May to a packed house.

• The Family BBQ was held in our newly renovated Aggie Park. The Original Aggie Park.

• We continue to have outstanding Monday Lunch speakers each week.

• The Aggie Moms’ and Aggie Women’s Clubs held wonderful fundraisers throughout the year with much success.

Our fundraising efforts wrapped up with Sunday with Santa and Aggie Market Day hosted by The Aggie Moms’ Club, Aggie Women’s Club, and our Board of Directors.

The event brought smiles to many kiddos excited to meet with Santa and share what they wanted for Christmas. Aggie Market Day included many aggie-owned vendors like JustPots, The Sassy Texan, Lamplight Realty Group, and many more.

We officially wrapped up the year with our Annual Club Christmas Party on December 8th at Aggie Park. We celebrated the end of the year with our fellow Aggies including two-stepping, BBQ, plenty of desserts, and adult beverages provided by Rebecca Creek Distillery.

I am so grateful to our Board of Directors and members for making the San Antonio A&M Club the best Alumni Club in the world. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to serve. If you are ever in the neighborhood, drop by and say howdy. This is YOUR Club.

Gig ’em Reagan Freiling ’93 President

Board of Directors 2022

COMMANDANT

Howdy! As we finish off the 2022 Monday Lunch Speaker series, we want to thank you for your suggestions for interesting and engaging speakers for our weekly meetings. In November, the San Antonio A&M Club hosted Brigadier General Patrick R. Michaelis ‘93, the 46th Commandant of the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets. General Michaelis assumed this position at the University on October 1, 2022; the San Antonio A&M Club was his first off campus speaking engagement. Whoop!

During his presentation, General Michaelis briefed our guests on his vision for the Corps of Cadets. He discussed the goal to grow the Corps into a student lead organization dedicated to shaping

Corps students into our Nation’s top leaders. His presentation included a discussion of growing the Corps to a sustained population of 3,000 students and the strategic plan being developed by his team to manage this growth. His presentation was well received.

For a complete list of the noteworthy speakers featured at our Monday Lunch meetings, please visit our events page at Aggiepark.com. The next time you find yourself in the neighborhood of Aggie Park, the Original Aggie Park, we hope you will join us.

Gig ’em Aggies!

Becki Holmes ’82 Vice President

OF THE CORPS OF CADETS

We have heard the comment time and time again, especially at our weekly luncheons, “What happens on the bus stays on the bus.”

Well, I will break tradition for a moment to give you insight as to what truly goes on for those who have never had the opportunity to travel with our bus captains. It is, at least for my family, a great perk and convenience to ride the bus, especially when our boys play late games. We have certainly had our fair share of those.

For the last five or more years, our family has been proud holders of season tickets and parking passes. (By the way, we have six Aggies in our family. Whoop!) Regardless of our parking pass status, we have elected to ride the game day bus from Aggie Park. It allows us to avoid parking hassles and driving challenges while enjoying quality time and great conversations of past experiences with our families and the years we spent at Aggieland. As a bonus, it allows us time together to plan for future family gatherings.

Our family home game weekends begin with my brother and sisterin-law religiously driving in from

GAMEDAY BUS

TO AGGIELAND

the Rio Grande Valley on Fridays. We start with Friday night dinners reviewing our food and beverage inventory as we prepare for the designated Saturday bus departure time from Aggie Park.

Regardless of kick-off time, we pack our “standard bus ride” lunches, snacks, and variety of “beverages” with plenty of ice needed for cocktails. Win or lose, those sandwiches, snacks and beverages always facilitate conversations as to what happened during the game. Before you know it, hours have passed and it is late afternoon or past midnight as our professional driver carefully turns on the cab lights signaling we have arrived back at Aggie Park.

Whether our bus driver takes IH10 east past Buc-ee’s and left to Bastrop or straight 35 North past Buc-ee’s and right on 21 to Bastrop, we are enthusiastic to be back in Aggieland where our family has shared life, studied, and graduated. Sometimes I feel bad for those outside our windows stuck in traffic, while our family is

on the bus ready to take the spirit walk from the north end of Simpson Drill Field through the MSC and onto Kyle.

We hope you’ll join our family for a gameday bus trip in the 2023 football season!

Gig ’em RC Contreras ’80 Member

AGGIE MOMS’ CLUB

on their faces were priceless when we presented them with a $500 donation in addition to the food.

Howdy, Aggies!

It seems the San Antonio Aggie Moms’ Club is busier than ever with many fun events taking place recently and more to follow!

Fellow board member Mollie Drew ’98 and I had the great pleasure of being present when our Aggie Ring scholarship recipient, Avery Howland ’24, was presented with her ring on Aggie Ring Day in September. Ring Day is always exciting. Congratulations to Avery!

Guest speakers at our October meeting were two student representatives from The 12th Can, the student-run food pantry at A&M. Our generous Aggie Moms donated 1,052 pounds of non-perishable food items for Seth and Gabriela to take back to College Station. The smiles

In November, we hosted Alyssa Seivert and Megan Cullers from Student Health Services (A.P. Beutel Health Center). As we’ve learned in the past, the SHS staff is very informative and knowledgeable about the many services they offer to Texas A&M students. Alyssa and Megan answered many of the moms’ questions, and everyone left knowing their students would have exceptional care at Beutel Health Center should the need arise.

December remains a very busy month as we prepare to assemble and deliver goody bags to about 200 students; co-hosted Sunday with Santa on December 4th; and celebrate the holidays, our August and December graduates, and our former presidents.

For anyone who is interested in joining the San Antonio Aggie Moms’ Club, our meetings are held the first Tuesday of each month (except for January, June, and July) at 6:30 p.m. at Aggie Park.

We have a simple meal, a guest speaker or other program, and drawings for door prizes and a $250 scholarship. For more information, please send inquiries to our club email at sanantoniomoms@ aggienetwork.com or to me directly at samomspresident@aggienetwork. com.

Gig ’em!

Virginia McCleskey ’88 President, Aggie Moms’ Club

AGGIE WOMEN’S CLUB

The Aggie Women’s Club will have its January Luncheon meeting at Aldino at the Vineyard on January 12, 2023, at 11am. A speaker from Wildbirds Unlimited will present the program.

If you are interested, or know someone who is interested in our club, please have them contact Donna Hill, dchill1025@att.net or at 210-241-6719.

Sandy Deitchle President, Aggie Women’s Club

YOUNG AGGIES

OF SAN ANTONIO

It’s been quite a year for the Young Aggies! We started 2022 with two trips to the AT&T Center for the San Antonio Rodeo and a Spurs basketball game. In April, a group of us made it out to Big Bend National Park for some hiking and R&R. The Young Aggies also hosted a “Bar Crawl for ‘Murica” on July 4th weekend and another for Halloween. We closed out the 2022 calendar year with a trip to New Braunfels for Wurstfest!

It’s been my pleasure serving as the Young Aggies Coordinator over the last two years. I’m excited to see what 2023 has in store for the Young Aggies as Nicholas Simpson ’19 takes over as Young Aggies Coordinator. He’ll be kicking off 2023 with an Aggie Happy Hour at the Rustic on January 19th. See you there!

Gig ’em

Paul Schuder Jr. ’18 Young Aggies Coordinator

6205 West Avenue San Antonio, TX 78213

San Antonio A&M Club