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Silver Taps

Due to continuing health and safety concerns, Silver Taps will transition to a virtual event for the fall 2020 semester. Virtual Silver Taps will be streamed on the first Tuesday of each month, as needed on KAMU-TV and on Texas A&M’s YouTube channel. 

Silver Taps is one of the most sacred and significant traditions at A&M. It is one of the final tributes held for any current graduate or undergraduate student who has passed during the year.

Silver Taps is held the first Tuesday of the month following a student’s death. Starting in the morning, the flags on campus are flown at half-mast. The names, class and major of the fallen Aggies are on cards placed at the base of the flagpole in the Academic Plaza and on the Silver Taps Memorial. Throughout the day, students can write letters to the families of the fallen Aggies. That night at 10:15p.m., all the lights on campus are extinguished. Hymns are then played on the Albritton Bell Tower, always including How Great Thou Art and ending in Amazing Grace. Around this time, students gather silently in the Academic Plaza. The families of the fallen Aggies are also led into the plaza. At 10:30p.m., the Ross Volunteer Company marches into the Academic Plaza at a slow cadence. Once they arrive, they fire a three-volley salute in honor of the fallen Aggies. After the last round is fired, buglers atop the Academic Building begin to play a special rendition of “Taps” called “Silver Taps,” which is unique to A&M. The buglers play “Taps” three times: once to the north, once to the south, and once to the west, but never to the east, because it said the sun will never rise on that fallen Aggie again.

This solemn tradition was held for the first time in 1898 in honor of Lawrence Sullivan Ross, former state of Texas governor and president of the college. No other university in the world honors students in this way.

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Related Traditions

  • Bonfire Memorial
  • Muster
  • MSC

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  • Student Assistance Services
  • Traditions Council

Aggies Remember

For me, Silver Taps became a monthly opportunity to pause and reflect on my life. During the Ross Volunteers' three volleys and the subsequent playing of the special rendition of Taps, I took the time to reflect on my past month, the trials and tribulations I encountered, how I'd grown as an individual, and the lessons I'd learned.

- Matthew Keller ’13

It was so important to take time from our schedules and spend a moment in silence honoring those we had lost.

- Matthew Kolker ’13

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