RE Log - Fall 2023

78 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2023 In Loving Memory To submit an obituary of an alum, former faculty member, former trustee or former administrator of Ransom Everglades who has passed away, please email Maggie Pearson ’80 at mpearson@ransomeverglades.org. We request that you keep your submission to no more than 500 words and remember to include a high resolution photo and the graduating class years of all Ransom Everglades alumni or students mentioned. Submissions for In Loving Memory Former trustee and parent Elizabeth Beach passed in June. From the Beach family: “The Beach family put two reasonably bright students, Christopher ’87 and Victoria ’83 , through a combined total of 12 years at Ransom Everglades. However, the family’s brightest star at the school was clearly their mother, Elizabeth Beach, honored with alumni status without taking a single class. Deservedly so, for while her children were taking in all that RE offered, Elizabeth was giving back to the school with seemingly limitless devotion. “The oldest of four girls from a small Swiss settlement in Illinois, Elizabeth grew up as the over-achieving, ‘respon- sible one’: girl scout, valedictorian, head cheerleader, college dorm captain. After marrying a dashing Marine fighter pilot, she became an elementary school teach- er, launching a lifetime of dedication to education through music, literature, nature and academic rigor. “Elizabeth volunteered at Alexander Montessori School; dressed up with a curly white wig as Johann Sebastian Bach to teach Miami-Dade County school children about music; ran the Miami Choral Society, the Miami Philharmonic’s KinderKoncerts and Prelude organizations, led the Miami International Book Fair; volunteered at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden for over a quarter century; and championed many other great causes with depth and diplomacy. “For Ransom Everglades, she served on the RE Parents’ Association for 10 years, the Board of Trustees for 10 years, the Development Committee, the Education Committee, the Long- Range Planning Committee, the Bylaws Revision Committee, the Bowden Library Planning Committee and the Silver Anniversary Recognition Committee. She also helped found the Dade Independent School Coalition. “To all of this she brought her instinct for hospitality, celebration and warm welcomes for all newcom- ers. Her social skills were legendary and prompted her children’s own classmates to ask them, ‘why can’t you be more fun, like your mother?’ Accordingly, she helped create fun activities such as the Handsome Ransom fund-raising volunteer ca- terers and the R.E.L.I.C.S. (Ransom Everglades Lingering Involved Concerned Supporters) for parents of alumni. Elizabeth received the RE Founders’ Award for Distinguished Service to the Community upon her retirement from the RE board, but soon jumped right back into service on the school’s Adirondack Council. Elizabeth took more interest in others than they took in themselves. She lived her life interwoven with her community, nurturing it so that it could nurture others — especially children. Her own children benefited most profoundly of all. Though they lost Elizabeth to a slow, gentle death from leukemia in April of last year, Victoria and Christopher (along with their daughters — both named after grandma) will spend the rest of their lives warmed by the bright starlight of their beloved and favorite Ransom Everglades alum.”