Texas A&M Grad Poses With Alligator She Kisses, Tickles Every Day

BEAUMONT, TX — Context is everything in graduation pictures, and it’s especially important in the case of Texas A&M student Makenzie Noland, who stood next to a nearly 14-foot-long alligator for her graduation pictures.

The swamp creature named Big Tex weighs 1,000 pounds, dwarfing Noland, and holds the U.S. record for the largest gator caught alive. But despite alligators’ somewhat unfair reputation for being tough, Big Tex is a big softie.

Noland and Big Tex have developed a strong interspecies friendship during her internship with Gator Country, an alligator rescue group. Every day as she wades into the pond and feeds Big Tex, she tickles his nose and gives him a kiss.

One picture of the two friends shows her rubbing the gator’s snout. Another shows Big Tex’s powerful jaws and razor teeth, which he could snap around Noland’s petite hand if he took a notion — which so far, he hasn’t. There are no bites on Noland’s resume.

“He’s one of my best friends here,” Noland told KTXS.

Noland, a 2015 graduate of Jim Ned High School in Tuscola, finished her Texas A&M degree in wildlife and fisheries sciences in just three years. She wants to get a job for either the Fort Worth Zoo or the Dallas Zoo. Her internship ends Thursday.

“This experience, it's really helped me on public speaking," Noland told television station KFDM. “It's given me an opportunity and a platform to spread awareness about animals, which, at the end of the day, is what I really want to do. That's why I went to Texas A&M. They have one of the best AG programs in the country and I am trying to well round myself so I can start a career.”


Here's a video of Noland at work:

File photo by Matt Stroshane/Getty Images