24 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2026 StudentNews Ransom Everglades’ Class of 2026 Dan Leslie Bowden Fellows in the Humanities showcased their completed research projects December 8 during Bowden Fellows Gallery Night, a capstone event for an academic journey that began early in 2025. Introduced by RE’s Chief of Innovation and Strategic Programming John A. King Jr., the director of the nine-yearold program, Jacob Zide ’26, Alicia Medina ’26, Bridget Mestepey ’26, Sophia Linfield ’26, Christopher Tsialas ’26, Alexandra Russoniello ’26 and Ana Gonzalez ’26 presented their work on themes that included reconciliation, remembrance and grief. The evening events opened in the Lewis Family Auditorium and concluded in the Solomon Art Gallery. “This year’s Dan Leslie Bowden Fellows in the Humanities wonder about people, ideas and symbols, display courage by going to unfamiliar places, and humility by asking difficult and honest questions, and seek connection with the past, nature, witnesses and survivors, and each other,” King said. “Together, the Bowden Fellows Bowden Fellows Gallery Night unveils humanities research of seven seniors explore memory as a fundamental aspect of the human experience.” The appreciative crowd included Bowden grandnephew Thomas Bowden and Jeffrey Miller ’79, whose seed donation in 2016 created the fellowships, along with Head of School Rachel Rodriguez and Chief Operating Officer David Clark ’86. The Dan Leslie Bowden Fellowships in the Humanities offer opportunities for select Ransom Everglades students to carry out humanities research in areas of their choosing under the mentorship of King and RE humanities department faculty. Students in 11th grade are eligible to apply for Bowden fellowships for the summer prior to their senior year. The Bowden Fellowship Committee, which until his death in 2018 included Bowden, favors proposals that “demonstrate courage in the passionate pursuit of what makes us human.” Tsialas studied how various philosophical frameworks, especially Stoicism, existentialism and Buddhist mindfulness, help adolescents process grief and rediscover meaning after the loss of a loved one. Tsialas, who lost his brother, Antonio Tsialas ’19 in October 2019, traveled throughout Colorado for research and experiences that informed his conclusions. “This project taught me that the questions we ask in grief are not only about those we have lost,” Tsialas said. “They are also about who we choose to become in their absence. If we can help adolescents face that question with courage and vulnerability, then grief is not just something to survive. It becomes a place where character is made and meaning is found. That is not only what helps us heal. It is what it means to be human.” Medina traveled to Bogotá, Colombia, and observed how ordinary women took the lead in reconciliation and peace after the end of the decades-long war between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government. “My research points to a deeper understanding of what it means to be human after war,” Medina said from the auditorium stage. “To be human is not only to remember, but to choose how memory is carried, whether as a wall that separates or as a fabric that binds. Christopher Tsialas ’26, Bridget Mestepey ’26, Alexandra Russoniello ’26, Alicia Medina ’26, Jacob Zide ’26, Ana Gonzalez ’26, Sophia Linfield ’26
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