In a survey last spring, RE students described Ransom Everglades using words including “fun,” “community” and “care,” and nearly 90 percent of upper school students said they had a trusted adult on campus in whom to confide. Our students also indicated that they value – and practice – academic integrity. Needless to say, we were delighted with these results. We also learned this summer that 88 percent of RE students scored 4s or 5s on their AP examinations and the majority of RE test takers achieved the highest score of 5. This is great news, and it confirms what research tells us: that community, care and belonging are deeply intertwined with student achievement or, as we say it at Ransom Everglades: Honor & Excellence.

Seventy years after the founding of Everglades School for Girls and more than 120 years after the start of the Florida-Adirondack School, we continue to feel the impact of grand ideas infused with big dreams and built on strong values and tireless dedication. Our alumni are REconnecting with each other and current students frequently and meaningfully, and our strongest supporters continue to ensure that we recruit and keep the highest-caliber teachers. Even our REimagined college counseling office, which seeks to ensure that each senior finds a great fit in the college process, achieved success last spring from every vantage point, including from the most traditional view of excellence as nearly 1 in 4 members of the Class of 2025 (38 out of 160 seniors) headed to an Ivy League school, Stanford, Duke or MIT this fall.

Our gREat school is a testament to what dreaming big can accomplish, and this magazine aims to highlight some of our most ambitious dREamers. Alumna Ali (Salaverria) Mejia ’90 set aside Wall Street ambitions to pursue clothing design – namely, pajamas – an aspiration she carried from her high school days. Her passion and persistence have made Eberjey one of the most successful sleepwear brands in the world, and you can read her story of softness here. History and social sciences teacher Joe Mauro, meanwhile, has helped put generations of RE students on the path to success, launching them with a welcoming and encouraging classroom environment (see the story here). Erik Medina ’21 illustrates how quickly RE alumni can leave their mark on the world; at Princeton University, his professors were so awed by his classroom work and research into the significant problem of upcycling plastics that he was named valedictorian last spring – an extraordinary honor. We are thrilled that he chose to come to RE as a chemistry teacher in 2025-26 before entering a PhD program next fall; read more in the story by Sofia Andrade ’19 – another impressive young alum.

Annie Lord ’97 never lost her desire to help mend the inequality she saw first-hand growing up in Coconut Grove, so after graduating from Harvard and exploring various career paths she jumped at the opportunity to make a lasting impact at Miami Homes for All. Her efforts to curb housing inequality in Miami earned her the Founders’ Award for Distinguished Service to the Community this past spring, and you can read more about her dreams for a more equitable society in a story by Victoria Beatty ’00, an education consultant to Ransom Everglades. 

Learn how Roxi Vadia Morgenstern ’75 and Cheyenne Range ’14 are separated by generations but united in service to RE; they shared this past year’s Head of School’s Award for Distinguished Service to the School (page 40), and find out more about another record-setting year of giving to The Fund for RE in the 2024-25 Report of Giving on page 45. The school raised $5.6 million to ensure that students have everything they need to live out our core values.

In our “From the Archives” department at the end of this magazine, you will be reminded that Everglades founders Marie and Ed Swenson aspired to create a school that would not only provide a superior education to their daughter and her friends, but would also make a “lasting contribution to the Florida educational landscape.” 

As this magazine makes clear, that impact continues, and it is REsounding.