APRIL RING DAY 2017 FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 2017 | SERVING TEXAS A&M SINCE 1893 | © 2017 STUDENT MEDIA | @THEBATTONLINE
H O U S I N G 12 TIPS TO HAVING A FUN (AND SAFE) RING DUNK PAGE 2
G U I D E
I N S I D E
VIETNAM VET, AGGIE REMAINS RETURNED TO FAMILY PAGE 3
RING DAY COLUMNS PAGE 4
Rachel Grant — THE BATTALION
FULL CIRCLE
Series of accidents, crowdfunding lead to surprise Aggie Ring order
Leah Kappayil — THE BATTALION
Friends of English senior Lino Anunciacion raised money via GoFundMe after several events left him unable to pay for his Aggie Ring.
By Chevall Pryce @ChevallP
B
etween a broken down car, a burned down house and a sick grandmother, Lino Anunciacion felt like it would take a miracle for him to afford his Aggie Ring. Anunciacion, English senior and president of Mic Check, a non-profit poetry organization in Bryan, seemed to have one bad incident after another while saving money for his Aggie Ring. After the initial fear of having to give up on his piece of Aggie gold, friends and his Mic Check family swooped in to make sure Anunciacion wouldn’t leave Aggieland with a bare right ring finger. It began when Anunciacion reached 90 credit hours in the fall, the minimum requirement for students to order their Aggie Ring. “I had been saving money. At that point I had about $800. To save the money, over the summer I was working full time,” Anunciacion said. “Also, I’m a spoken word poet so I was touring around the country with a friend of mine doing shows and stuff to make money. Once we got off the road, my car broke down. The brakes literally fell off of my car.” Repairing his car cost Anunciacion most of the money he made while working, leaving him to strive toward getting his ring the next semester instead. After continuing his poetry tour, along with selling books he’d written, Anunciacion partially made the money back. But the hits kept coming. “I’m leaving the place that I’m staying in Austin and I back into a pole that’s in my blind spot. It breaks the sideview mirror completely off,” Anunciacion said. “My grandma had gotten sick and we needed to cover some stuff for her, so I gave my mom some money, about $200. So essentially all of the tour money was gone again. But I still had another leg of the tour to do.” Earlier this spring, Anunciacion received a phone call from his mother: His house had burned down. “Afterward, my mom calls me and tells me everything’s fine, everybody’s safe. But, to cover the ANUNCIACION ON PG. 6
Class of ‘09 Aggie to be reunited with her ring After 2 years, Natalie Cervantes’ ring was found in a pawn shop in San Antonio By Mariah Colón @MariahColon18
PHOTO VIA FACEBOOK
As Ring Day approaches thousands of Aggies prepare to get their Aggie Rings and check off another box on their A&M checklist. Natalie Cervantes, Class of 2009, won’t receive a new ring, but will be reunited with an old one. Cervantes misplaced her Aggie Ring more than two years ago and assumed the ring had disappeared forever. “I lost my ring in a bathroom two and a half years ago, and after it did not resurface for a week I assumed it had be stolen and more than likely sold/melted for the metal,” Cervantes wrote on Facebook. “Obviously for any Aggie, it’s a pretty awful feeling but I resigned myself to replace the ring at some point.” This weekend, Cervantes will be given her original Aggie Ring after years without it. A series of events was set into motion when San
Antonio Police detective Angelica Leal, Class of 1997, stumbled upon the ring while out on her day off from work. “The morning that I was off from work I was near a store that sells Alkaline Water next to the pawn shop and I was waiting for the store to open and thought, ‘Oh, the pawn shop is open, let me kill time,’” Leal said. “As soon as I entered the door the ring was just right there … I walked up and asked the lady if I could see the ring … The only reason I wanted to see the ring was to see if there was a name on the inside.” Leal said she knew something was wrong when she noticed that the engraving on the ring was almost entirely etched out. “I thought to myself, ‘There’s no way an Aggie would pawn their ring,’” Leal said. “When I saw that it was etched out I thought, ‘Wow this is definitely lost, stolen or something was criminally behind it.’” Leal took a photo of the ring and shared it with fellow Aggies who worked with her. Leal said the photo spread like wildfire and eventually found its way to Clinton Haby, Class of 2002. CERVANTES ON PG. 2