(Press Release) The Rogue Riders team will visit the community for five days to gauge its friendliness in comparison to small towns in four other states along with another Texas town, Frisco.
When they arrive at Texas A&M’s Appelt Aggieland Visitor Center at 10 a.m. Thursday, they will be informally welcomed and then have a personal tour of the main campus.
College Station Mayor Nancy Berry and representatives of the Bryan-College Station Convention & Visitors Bureau will then formally welcome them. After lunch at the Memorial Student Center, they will visit the West Campus and the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
Click here to see the full itinerary for Thursday’s visit.
Texas A&M President R. Bowen Loftin has joined with city officials and local civic leaders in encouraging a warm welcome for the Rogue Riders, saying that he is confident that Aggies and all others in the campus community will do their part to convince the Rogue Riders that College Station is worthy of being designated the nation’s friendliest small town.
“We Aggies pride ourselves on being friendly, and we are proud to call College Station our home and pleased to be right in the heart of town, so we certainly plan to do our part to show our well-known hospitality and help add ‘America’s friendliest small town’ to College Station’s many claims to fame,” notes Loftin.
Other finalists in the friendliest-small-town category of the Rand McNally and USA Today’s “Best of the Road” competition are Murray, Ky.; Joplin, Mo.; Cloudcroft, N.M. and San Luis Obispo, Calif.
The winners will be announced July 16 and will be highlighted in Rand McNally’s 2013 Road Atlas and in USA Today. The tour will also be featured in a one-hour television special on the Travel Channel in late July.
The City of College Station, the Bryan-College Station Convention and Visitors Bureau, BCS Chamber of Commerce, along with Texas A&M, have planned a comprehensive itinerary for the team’s visit. The Rogue Riders will travel around town in a specially marked “Best of the Road” Honda CRV and will post photos, videos, blogs and social media reports about their experiences.
“It’s quite an honor to be a finalist for friendliest city, which is a quality that everyone who lives in College Station has always recognized and valued,” Mayor Nancy Berry said as the city geared up for the Rogue Riders’ visit. “This is our chance to let the nation know what we’re all about, so if you see the Rogue Riders around town, be sure and give them a warm smile and a friendly ‘howdy.’”
The teams and finalists were selected after receiving the most online votes in May. The Best of the Road Rally began on June 15 in Washington, D.C.
