Sustained and inspired by traditions

12/3/2019

The timing was almost too perfect. Fiddler on the Roof opened to a packed audience with Joshua Hertz ’20 as Teyve, leading the cast through “Tradition,” just as Ransom Everglades was in the midst of showcasing some of our finest traditions. Teyve counsels the audience to hang onto the traditions of the past, traditions that “give us balance,” as the increasingly complicated and conflictive outside world encroaches. We, too, at Ransom Everglades look for balance and wisdom in the traditions that have connected and shaped our community, especially as we encounter new challenges and circumstances.

Trustee Emeritus Harry Anderson ’38, who has served the school as a board member since 1947 once wrote, “we take pride in the fact that throughout the years there has been continuity with change. This is exemplified by our history of excellence in education, strengthened by the many fine traditions which have complemented each stage of the schools’ development.“ For 116 years we have derived sustenance and inspiration from our rich heritage and our enduring traditions.

The tradition of service to the greater good, most particularly to those less fortunate, has always been part of our heritage.

This week preparations continue for St. Alban’s Day, work that began almost immediately at the start of the school year. St. Alban’s Day is a Christmas party conceived in the 1950s by the Everglades girls for the children at St. Albans’s Child Enrichment Center in Coconut Grove. The tradition has continued uninterrupted to the present. Sophomore advisories bear primary responsibility for the upper school party, raising funds and organizing events for the excited elementary school children who will fill our campus on Friday. The middle school is engaged in similar activities and will actually host the largest number of grateful guests. The energy around this highly anticipated tradition is intense, and alums would agree that this is one of the most memorable events of their time here.

When we left for the Thanksgiving break the cannon on the Quad was decorated to perfection: a beautiful turkey adorned with a pilgrim’s hat and gratitude scrawled on the base. Today, it is repainted to promote the spirit of St. Alban’s Day. Another RE tradition continues: painting the cannon to represent what the community values and respects.

Alongside preparations for St. Alban’s Day, the middle school sent 45 Thanksgiving baskets to the Rolle Community Center, and the upper school collected more than 300 bags of holiday groceries for the Miami Rescue Mission. The atrium on the Everglades campus is quickly filling with toys for Saturday’s toy drive at Christ Episcopal Church in the Grove, the same church we partnered with for Bahamas relief. Our alums will continue their tradition at the holiday party of collecting toys for Centro Mater.

This week the Pagoda will be decorated by REPA, a tradition that always preceded legendary teacher Dan Bowden’s holiday reading of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory. Imagine what it must have been like for Dan to read in the Pagoda to a standing-room-only crowd, inevitably recalling when he lived in one small room of the Pagoda as a young teacher at the Ransom School. His mellifluous voice will no longer fill the room, but memories of his tradition will. Who will forget the beginning “Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter more than twenty years ago.”? And the ending: “That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep watching the sky.”

I cannot end this column without mentioning what I observed on a recent morning in late November; November 29 to be exact. The Ransom Everglades community came together in the Lewis Family Auditorium, not to see a magnificent play, but to remember and celebrate the life of Antonio Tsialas ’19. The service was beautiful in large part because of the way that current and former students recalled the indelible impression Antonio left on them and how they supported each other and Antonio’s family through their crippling grief. I know for certain that the students and alumni who spoke at the service found strength in the strong tradition of RE soccer that has been built under the steady and guiding hand of alumnus Dave Villano ’79. That tradition enabled them to find balance in the face of unspeakable tragedy.

When I headed back to the Pagoda after the service, I stopped to speak to a group from the Class of 2019 that was looking in awe at the nearly completed STEM Center. They commented on the size, the architecture, the location and the academic gravitas of the new building. They also asked about the changes that will come about because of both the new building and the addition of La Brisa. They weren’t concerned, though; they were visibly excited by what the future holds. I think that they instinctively knew that we would hang on tight to our traditions.

An institution ceases to be an institution and becomes a community when we steward the trust and traditions that have been handed down to us by those who came before. I could not be more grateful for our remarkable community, and I thank you for all you to do to support our school and its mission, in good times and in times of need.

Penny Townsend
Head of School
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RE founder Paul Ransom, circa 1903

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Sustained and inspired by traditions

Middle School

Upper School