Aggies Write In: How I Met My Best Friend at Texas A&M

I met my husband, Robert ’95, the first night of a study abroad to Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy, on May 26, 1993. From our first dinner on, we studied together, sat by each other during field trips, ate meals together and had the best time getting to know one another during our six weeks in Italy. We both knew right away that we wanted to date once we got back to Texas A&M. It was pretty much love at first sight! We got engaged one year later in May 1994 and married in May 1995, exactly two years after we met. We are still happily married and have three children—two sons who are now Aggies and a daughter who hopes to attend Texas A&M next year. We named our daughter Chiara after the study center, Santa Chiara (Saint Claire)! We’ve taken our kids back to see where we met a few times, and it is so special to relive those memories.

Amy (Fowler) Shawver ’96
Dallas, Texas

As part of Company E-2, I brought Reveille IV to a political science class in January 1978. All was well until she threw up! That evening at Sparkey’s, a girl from my class, Teresa ’80, approached me and asked how Reveille was doing. I told her she was okay. I invited her to the Texas A&M vs. Rice basketball game the following day, and a relationship ensued. We’ve been married for 44 years!

Joe Pierce ’80
Houston, Texas

I met my absolute best friend in the world, William ’89, in front of Keathley Hall in 1987. I thought he was a little annoying, but he told his roommate that day, “That’s the girl I’m gonna marry!” Thirty-five years of marriage later, we’re still in love, still best friends and still Aggies to the core!

Nancy Grace (Butler) Scott ’89
Mertzon, Texas

At Freshman Orientation in 1998, my parents and another girl’s parents started talking about how both of us mistakenly thought we could register for a dorm when we registered for classes. This girl, Delia (Munoz) Jaime ’92, and I were complete strangers, but our parents took us apartment hunting later that afternoon, and we became roommates. We grew inseparable and were very active with the MSC Committee for the Awareness of Mexican American Culture. We made lifelong friends at Texas A&M and still talk about the old times as if it were yesterday, 35 years later!

Gloria Jimenez-Jackson ’92
The Woodlands, Texas

I met my wife, Charity ’97 ’00, in Aggieland, but she was my ex-girlfriend’s roommate! Needless to say, it started off a little rocky due to their friendship, but it turned out well for all parties. The roommate and her husband (both Aggies as well) got married before us, and we are all still friends! Charity and I just celebrated our 25th anniversary in August 2024! 

Ryan Workman ’99
Little Rock, Arkansas

I met my husband, Shane ’01, while walking out of a Geography of the Global Village class in G. Rollie White Coliseum on Sept. 1, 1999. He held the door for me, and the rest is history! When the coliseum was torn down, I purchased a brick from it to gift him. A few years later, he gifted it back to me with the inscription, “Everything starts with one step, or one brick, or one word, or one day.”

Erin (Walters) Coker ’02 
Austin, Texas

In fall 1961, I was living in Milner Hall after extending my graduation by one year. One day, the guy next door came to me with a letter from a girl named Elizabeth at Texas Woman’s University and said I should write back since he was engaged. The handwriting was so bad that it had been placed in his mailbox by mistake! I wrote back and later invited her to a football game. We continued writing, and when I graduated in June 1962, we continued dating in Houston while she finished her nursing degree and I worked at NASA. We celebrated our 60th anniversary in March 2024. I’m forever thankful that I extended my graduation!

Paul Romere ’61
Bayfield, Colorado

My best friend, Laura Ann (Griffin) Forest ’83, and I had many mutual friends when we met in 1981 through the MSC Student Conference on National Affairs. We’d always see each other at the Texas Hall of Fame and other outings. When I found out that she had to withdraw from school for family reasons, I asked if I could have her address. That began a long period of sending handwritten letters.

Laura Ann always said that when she got my first letter, she was taken aback as she didn’t truly think I would write. But we became besties through the mail, the old-fashioned way. My letters shared all the activities on campus, from The Big Event and dances like the Military Ball to sporting events and which acts MSC Town Hall attracted. I didn’t know until much later how much my letters helped keep Laura Ann’s dream of coming back to Texas A&M alive.

In 1985, we backpacked across Europe during the most wonderful summer of my life. Afterward, I returned to Texas A&M to finish my MBA, and Laura Ann re-enrolled to finish her communication degree. She was my matron of honor when I got married in 1991 and became the godmother to my first-born daughter as well. We loved serving as Class Agents for the Class of 1983 from 2013 to 2018.

Sadly, Laura Ann passed away from a heart attack in May 2019, and she is greatly missed. But I will always have the memories we shared with her family and mine over the decades. When I went to Texas A&M, I never imagined meeting a girlfriend that would be my BFF for life, but that’s exactly what happened. Semper fidelis, Laura Ann! 

Beth (Castenson) McQueen ’83 ’85
Leander, Texas

In August 1982, I arrived at Easterwood Airport coming from St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, for my senior year. A friend of mine who had become the head resident at Krueger Hall offered to pick me up. I was anxious to get back to campus and begin my role as president of Off-Campus Aggies. We arrived at Krueger, where I met some other resident advisors who were playing Boggle. One of them, Heather ’83, was quite gregarious in that moment, and we became very good friends. A few weeks later, I asked her out to a football game, and our friendship began to change and became deeper and more personal than I ever could have imagined. Just less than a year after we first met, I married Heather, and our best friendship has only gained momentum and meaning since. August 2024 marked 41 years together. Marriage to your best friend may seem rare, but it is the most wonderful thing I could recommend to anyone.

My husband, Jeffrey ’12, and I met at Fish Camp in the same discussion group and were dating by the first football game. He proposed under the Century Tree on Dec. 12, 2012, and we’ve been married for over 10 years with three kiddos!

I met my best friend in August 1976 after graduating with my animal science degree and entering graduate school. Martha ’78 ’81 ’86 had just transferred to Texas A&M from North Carolina State, also in animal science. I was working at the Texas A&M Horse Center washing horses, and she offered to help. Two years later, we were married in All Faiths Chapel the day after she graduated with her undergraduate degree. Our dedication to family and our careers in livestock production has provided a firm foundation for our relationship. She went on to complete her master’s and doctorate in areas of animal science and retired from teaching equine courses after 39 years, while I completed my master’s in animal science and still run horse breeding and cattle operations. When they removed the old barn at the Horse Center, we obtained a few bricks to use in our new house on our ranch! 

I met Raymond Dugat III ’73 when we both lived in Dorm 12. We eventually became roommates from 1972 to 1973. After we graduated, he married my sister. We kept in touch off and on after that, as my sister and I weren’t very close. After my sister passed away in 2017, we regained our close friendship. I normally call him on Sunday nights, and we drive 90 miles one way to have lunch together occasionally. He delivers hay to our ranch in Goliad from his place in Taft at no charge to me; I just pay the cost of the hay. That is a real friend!

When I entered Texas A&M in fall 1976, I was too late to get into a dorm. At the time, there were two lists for apartments. One was for students who didn’t have an apartment, and the other was for students who did have an apartment but needed roommates. I had an apartment, so I went down the list calling names. I talked with this guy who seemed to have similar interests. My mom called his, and they hit it off. In August that year, I met Mike Derrick ’79 for the first time. To this day, we talk to each other by phone at least two or three times a week. Our families have remained very close over the years, and I’ve watched his kids grow up. Now, I’m watching his grandkids grow up!

I’ve been married to my best friend, Pamela ’82, for over 42 years! I was a “Zach Rat”—a mechanical engineering major—and a mutual friend was responsible for introducing us. He described her as “the only beautiful blonde in Zachry!” Turns out, Pamela was a computer science major and probably one of only eight or 10 women in the entire engineering curriculum. 

In 1990, I worked my last Bonfire. As a Class of 1981 fish (non-reg), I was first soaked in the tradition soup and came back for graduate school years later—I had to be there again as an “old Ag.” I reunited with my best friend that night at Burn in Duncan Field. I had dated a sweet girl, Marnie, back in Amarillo but had broken up the year before. She wrote me that she and a few friends were driving down from Stephen F. Austin State University and maybe she could see me. I let her know I would be with buddies at Burn, but there would be 50,000 of us, so it was doubtful I would see her. Of course, God had other plans. I saw her, kissed her once and went back to celebrating with my buddies. She drove with her friends back to Nacogdoches a little confused. Thank God she didn’t give up—two years later, we were married and have shared love, life and Aggieness together. She bleeds maroon more than I do. Our son was Class of 2019 in G-2 and worked Bonfire to carry on the tradition. Amazing!

I first met my best friend, Jennifer (Burkey) Nagle ’96, when she walked into our dorm room—I was an over assignment—around 9 a.m. the day after I’d moved in. She found me sticking my head out from under my comforter and had no idea to expect a third person in her dorm room. That was fall 1992. We’ve both moved all over the country, and I’ve lived overseas twice, but we still stay close.

Lisa Dillon ’80 and I met on the first day of classes in 1976. I was walking with my boyfriend, Zane ’80, to class, and she ran up to give him a hug. Come to find out, they had dated and even gone to prom the year before. Lisa lived next door to his aunt and uncle in a different town and thought the relationship might rekindle at Texas A&M. She didn’t know about me! However, we became friends and even roomed together our junior year. After college, we fell out of touch for some time when Zane and I married and moved to Houston. But while shopping in 1981, I ran into Lisa, and a lasting friendship began. We’re best friends to this day. We’ve been through weddings, children, deaths, illnesses and now grandchildren together. Our families are so close and blessed to travel and celebrate life together. What started out awkward is now family!

After completing my first year at Texas A&M, I attended summer school in 1987 and was assigned to a dorm. My randomly assigned roommate was Liz (Manzano) Hasken ’87. We were first assigned to the Corps dorms, but neither of us enjoyed the communal bathrooms, so we moved to Mosher Hall. I was already assigned to a Northside dorm in the fall, while Liz had planned to live off campus. That’s where we met our other Aggie best friend, Emily (Cashion) Endres ’87 ’88. We remained roommates in some combination until we graduated. 

Our chance encounters led to 38 years of friendship. In recent years, we’ve had opportunities to get together, including last year for an Aggie football game at Kyle Field. Getting together requires some effort since we all live a distance apart: I live in South Texas, Emily is in North Texas and Liz lives in the Northeast.

I cherish our years at Texas A&M, as well as the years we’ve shared since. We’ve gotten to see each other’s families grow, even if it has sometimes been at a distance. There is no doubt that meeting Liz and Emily at Texas A&M changed my life for the better!