He had a pedigree that aligned him with the New England elite: He grew up in Greenwich, Conn., a wealthy enclave in a state represented in the Senate by his father, Prescott, and attended prep school at the prestigious Phillips Academy before going to Yale University, where he was captain of the baseball team.

But this week, President George Bush, who died on Friday at 94, will be buried in a place that, in some ways, could not be farther from his East Coast roots: near a pond stocked with catfish on the campus of what had once been an agricultural and mechanical college, in a city sprouting from a spread of farm and ranch land in Central Texas.

He had few bonds with the school, Texas A&M University, when he picked it to be the home of his presidential library. Now its campus will be his final resting place.

It was quite an evolution from being a stranger to the university to deciding to anchor his legacy there. But it reflects a relationship forged over the years as, students and university officials said, he became a visible presence on campus and an influential force behind the scenes. He was the rare person who could persuade world leaders — including, last year, the four living former presidents — to travel to College Station, Tex., where students gathered late on Friday night, not long after his death was announced, for a candlelight vigil.