For Aaron and Amberly Hall, both Class of 2002 at Texas A&M University, the campus was love at first sight. And now their unwavering passion for the school — along with Aaron Hall’s appreciation for the scholarship that helped pay for his Aggie education — has led them to establish a scholarship.

The Bellaire couple believes in giving back, so they worked with the Texas A&M Foundation to set up a scholarship during the university’s ongoing Operation Spirit and Mind scholarship initiative.

“I received the Patrick Thomas Hlavinka Memorial Scholarship for academics as a freshman, and that enabled me to get out-of-state tuition waived,” Aaron Hall said. “It really helped my parents financially, and it built my confidence to receive it. I got to know the Hlavinkas, the couple who established the scholarship. They had an interest in me; they showed me I was important to them.”

So the Halls felt it was their turn, and they established the Aaron ’02 and Amberly ’02 Hall Endowed Scholarship, with a gift of $37,500. It will be awarded based on academics, and Aaron Hall hopes it will help out-of-state Aggies receive in-state tuition. (Texas A&M can waive out-of-state tuition for students who receive at least $1,000 per year from scholarships that are also open to Texas residents.) The Halls’ giving, spread over five years, will be matched up to $2,500 per year by Total, the integrated international gas and oil company in Houston for which Aaron Hall works as director of natural-gas trading. “My company’s matching makes my gift go a lot further,” he said.

“I wanted to reward someone the way I was rewarded,” Aaron Hall said. “I want students to know I believe in them. I want it to be personal.”

As high school students, neither of the Halls was set on attending Texas A&M. Both are the first Aggies in their families.

Aaron Hall is a self-described military brat who was attending high school in Nebraska but had no roots there. He decided to visit all Big 12 campuses after his junior year. The trip began and ended with Texas A&M.

Hall said Texas A&M’s excellent programs in engineering and business, the two majors he was considering, figured heavily into his decision. But what sealed the deal was the welcoming campus atmosphere. By way of example, Hall said he asked a Corps of Cadets member for directions to a building. “He went out of his way and walked us to the building. That happens every day on the A&M campus, but it doesn’t happen everywhere,” Hall said. “It was just one of the positive things I saw. I told my parents, ‘You can stop the trip now.’ ”

Amberly Hall grew up in Santa Fe, about 45 minutes from Houston, and planned to attend community college for a couple of years before completing her degree at a four-year school. She visited and liked the people and atmosphere so much that she wanted to attend A&M all four years. She visited and was immediately drawn to the school so much that she wanted to attend A&M all four years. “I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere but here,” said Amberly Hall, who earned an education degree and is now raising the couple’s two sons.

Texas A&M’s Mays Business School indirectly led to their marriage and laid the foundation for Aaron Hall’s career.

The Halls’ romance began when they met on a business-program trip to the University of Oklahoma football game their sophomore year. “We met on the bus,” he said, “and found out later that we had a class together.”

And Hall credits his Mays education and the school’s Fellows Program with boosting his career. “The Fellows Program opened a lot of doors and helped me build confidence. The program is about leadership, succeeding and doing things right.” The Halls expect to establish more scholarships through the Texas A&M Foundation, he said, perhaps one for out-of-state students or for students who are the first in their family to attend Texas A&M.

The couple’s gift, finalized in April, supports Operation Spirit and Mind, which aims to raise $300 million for scholarships and graduate fellowships. These gifts may be endowed (so they help students forever) or “now” scholarships (helping only current students); they may be named for the donor or someone important in his or her life; they may be made under established programs or given to specific colleges or departments; and/or they may be customized in various ways according to the donor’s wishes — global study, for instance.

The Texas A&M Foundation, a private nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in Texas A&M academics and student leadership programs, leads the multiyear Operation Spirit and Mind fundraising initiative for the university.