COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Texas A&M’s 150th birthday gets a beaver on Tuesday. A new co-branded shirt showing the Buc-ee’s mascot marking the milestone goes on sale Nov. 3 in College Station, Texas, and the man who built the travel center chain returns to campus that afternoon to talk about it.
Buyers can find the shirt at a pop-up in Rudder Exhibit Hall or at the campus Barnes & Noble store. The costumed beaver is due to pose for selfies at a Rudder Plaza event that opens at 9 a.m. and wraps up at 6:30 p.m. It is the third design the school and the retailer have released together this year, and all three can be bought at the pop-up or later at the bookstore inside the Memorial Student Center.
At 4 p.m., Arch Aplin III, a 1980 Aggie graduate who earned his degree in building construction, speaks at Rudder Theatre in the Sesquicentennial Speaker Series. University President Susan Ballabina moderates the session, which is paired with the College of Architecture Showcase. Aplin is expected to cover how he grew one small store into a chain, along with his ideas on hospitality, retail and hands-on learning.
The chain dates to 1982, when Aplin opened his first store in Lake Jackson. His gift of $60 million is paying for the Aplin Center, now being built in the middle of the main campus, where students in fields from hospitality and retail to food innovation, marketing and merchandising will train next to industry partners.
The university says it is the only school Buc-ee’s has teamed with on a clothing line. The partnership, the school says, previews the kind of real-world work the new center is meant to spark.
Filed under: College Station TX Business News
