The first time I came to College Station—I was maybe six years old—the driving lanes left an impression. Having come from Fredericksburg, Texas, where there are still no double-lane turn lanes, I noticed that the intersection of Texas Avenue and University Drive had dotted lines to guide turning drivers.
Dunae Crenwelge '15
I had been introduced to Aggie jokes around the same time, because my sister had accepted her admission to Texas A&M University and some longhorn relative gave her the book “The Best of 606 Aggie Jokes.” So from the backseat of my parents’ minivan, having noticed those white dashes, I asked my family if “Aggies were too dumb to know how to turn and that’s why they needed lines to show them?”
You can bet that story has been retold a time or two.
Neither of my parents went to college. My mom Susan worked more than 30 years for the U.S. Postal Service as a highway contract carrier, while my father Atlee is a rancher. I have three older sisters, Colleen ’02, Laura ’04 and Janiece ’07. We all finished top of our class in high school—a favorite fake argument of my parents is to debate from which side of the family we got our brains—and we all ended up in Aggieland.
One of my favorite Texas A&M memories is from June 2011. The Texas 4-H Youth Development Foundation awarded its annual scholarships that summer in Rudder Tower. Halfway through the ceremony, I was called for one of three $16,000 scholarships from the Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo (Rodeo Austin). If you’ve ever stood up too quickly and felt the blood rush to your head, then you know how I felt at that moment. I do not wear heels as a general safety rule, so the only thought I had walking onstage was please don’t fall. It was only a little later that I processed the full magnitude of what I had been given.
I applied for more than 40 scholarships my senior year of high school, and I received 22. Combined with scholarships I later received in college, I generated a total of nearly $75,000. The Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo scholarship was the largest, and it helped me singlehandedly pay for my entire college education.
I’ve been working in the marketing department at the Texas A&M Foundation for more than two years, and I learned quickly that there are a thousand stories like mine. There are thousands of Aggies who get a tremendous boost from private scholarships funded by former students, corporations and other friends of Texas A&M.
The Aggie record of philanthropy is a strong draw for prospective students. I applied to only one other college, the University of Texas at Austin, but I received virtually no offers of financial support, despite being valedictorian and an involved student; that was a major deterrent. At Texas A&M, not only did I have financial support, but I’ve had many out-of-classroom experiences because of it: studying abroad in Nicosia, Cyprus, interning at a public affairs firm in Washington, D.C., working at the Foundation, working as an under graduate assistant and serving on staff for the MSC Leland T. and Jessie W. Jordan Institute for International Awareness.
Something else I’ve learned at the Foundation is that $75,000 is almost pocket change to the many millions that donors give annually. But to me, it was no joke.
By Dunae Crenwelge ’15
Texas A&M Foundation
The Texas A&M Foundation is a nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in academics and leadership programs to enhance Texas A&M’s capability to be among the best universities.
