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A tale of two cannons: GSA takes mishap in stride
Students in the Gender and Sexuality Association painted the cannon in rainbow colors not once, but twice, in a span of four days because students refused to be derailed by an unfortunate mishap. When their first effort on Pride Day got whitewashed because of a miscommunication, they simply got more paint and did it again.
The painting began on the morning of April 28, Pride Day. With the music of LGBTQ artists resounding through the quad, the GSA passed out rainbow leis; sold rainbow-colored pastries to support The Trevor Project, an organization that provides crisis- intervention and suicide-prevention for LGBTQ youth; and orchestrated the first painting of the cannon. GSA President Armando Brito '17 and Vice President Andina Kruijssen '17 engineered the day's work.
"Anyone could go and dip their hand in buckets of paint and leave their handprints on the white-painted cannon," Brito said. "By the end of the day, the cannon was covered in handprints of every color of the rainbow."
About an hour after most students had left the campus at the end of the day, a maintenance team came and whitewashed the cannon per its longstanding instructions in preparation for Alumni Weekend – when alums traditionally are offered the chance to adorn the cannon.
When Head of School Penny Townsend observed the accidental collision of student expression and pre-arranged event preparation, she reacted quickly, firing off a personal apology to the entire student body and offering the GSA the chance to repaint the cannon at the end of the Alumni Weekend.
GSA Secretary Nicole Verde '19 read the apology before she arrived to campus Friday.
"Had I seen the cannon before I saw the apology, I don't know what I would have done," she said. "It did make me pretty upset, but we all understood it was an honest mistake. We all took it in stride. It just gave us another opportunity to paint it."
So the group got back to work. Verde and four others – Lauren Eskra '18, Evan Azari '18, Holly Steinberg '19 and Oliver Stern '19 – came to campus on Sunday, May 1, a day after the alumni departed, and painted the cannon in rainbow stripes. Club leader Greg Cooper oversaw the effort.
"They wanted to preserve the celebration for more than three hours," Cooper said. "They wanted to share that with everybody. They were all very enthusiastic about wanting to do it."
On the cannon, they wrote:
LOVE PREVAILS.
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"Anyone could go and dip their hand in buckets of paint and leave their handprints on the white-painted cannon," Brito said. "By the end of the day, the cannon was covered in handprints of every color of the rainbow."
About an hour after most students had left the campus at the end of the day, a maintenance team came and whitewashed the cannon per its longstanding instructions in preparation for Alumni Weekend – when alums traditionally are offered the chance to adorn the cannon.
When Head of School Penny Townsend observed the accidental collision of student expression and pre-arranged event preparation, she reacted quickly, firing off a personal apology to the entire student body and offering the GSA the chance to repaint the cannon at the end of the Alumni Weekend.
GSA Secretary Nicole Verde '19 read the apology before she arrived to campus Friday.
"Had I seen the cannon before I saw the apology, I don't know what I would have done," she said. "It did make me pretty upset, but we all understood it was an honest mistake. We all took it in stride. It just gave us another opportunity to paint it."
So the group got back to work. Verde and four others – Lauren Eskra '18, Evan Azari '18, Holly Steinberg '19 and Oliver Stern '19 – came to campus on Sunday, May 1, a day after the alumni departed, and painted the cannon in rainbow stripes. Club leader Greg Cooper oversaw the effort.
"They wanted to preserve the celebration for more than three hours," Cooper said. "They wanted to share that with everybody. They were all very enthusiastic about wanting to do it."
On the cannon, they wrote:
LOVE PREVAILS.
Photo Gallery
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Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.