Cranbrook.edu

Ann Mell Retires After 44 Years

6/2/2025

Click here to Wish Ann Mell well as she retires

After 44 years of supporting students as they grew as athletes and leaders, Ann Mell is retiring. Starting at Kingswood in 1981, she has served in a multitude of roles over the years and touched the lives of generations of students. In recognition of the broad impact she had over the years, the Cranbrook Kingswood Alumni Association inducted her as an Honorary Alum in 2022.

Here is an excerpt from the pronouncement made by CKAA officer Ekta Lobo Wilcox '89 that day:

It is my great pleasure today to be able to highlight a very special member of our faculty.

Ann Mell is the current Athletic Director at the Cranbrook Kingswood Middle School for Girls, but over the past 41 years, she has worn many hats. She came to Kingswood before the schools were merged in the fall of 1981 as a member of the Physical Education Department. She worked closely with many longtime Kingswood faculty and quickly became an ambassador for the most important lessons young people can gain from athletics – good sportsmanship, leadership, discipline, integrity, and most of all the sheer joy of being part of a team. Whether you were a natural competitor who was varsity bound or a tentative dabbler in a given sport, Miss Mell gave you all the encouragement you needed to keep going. From field hockey to fencing, she has coached it all, and facilitated extracurricular sports and clubs across the decades. From Miss Mell, many an athlete has found the inspiration they needed to set the foundation of a career that took them to college and beyond, while others who might not have known they had it within them experienced newfound bliss in physical activity, competition, or the bonds of a team.

With the merging of the upper school, Ann Mell has been the unofficial “keeper of the flame” of the Kingswood spirit. Traditions from Kingswood’s early days, like spirited Green and White competitions, our unforgettable mascot, the AARDVARK, and the thrill of final K-Day celebrations bind our alumnae across generations. She has been an asset to the single gender environment at the Girls Middle School, inspiring her students to take on leadership roles and to be willing to try things outside their comfort zone, lessons they carry to the upper school and beyond.

In addition to her efforts on the Kingswood courts and fields, Ann has been a champion of the traditional 8th grade musical over the years. Many alumnae have sweet memories of that all-girl production, in which girls starred as everything from mustachioed villains to heroic princes. She led the highly anticipated annual “Dog Show” each year. Students delighted in the opportunity to show off their pets at school, and even fought each other for the opportunity to serve as part of the “bucket brigade” whose job was to mop up the inevitable messes on the gym floor during the show. The highlight of parent visiting day was always the “Crazy Races” where Miss Mell encouraged normally dignified parents to take to the gym floor for obstacle courses, relay races, tug-of-war and more. At “Club Mell” as her advisees lovingly refer to it, everyone is encouraged to let down their hair and have some fun.

For the support she has given our young athletes over more than four decades, for the lessons she has helped them learn – win or lose- on our fields, courts, gyms, pools, studios and trails, for the character and empathy she has helped our students build as they try new things and learn new skills, and for the contagious sense of fun she brings to everything she does, it gives me great pleasure to bestow the title of Honorary Alumnus upon Ann Mell and present her with her ring.

Go to the Alumni Welcome Page
Go to the Reunion Information Page

Back

- Ann Mell encouraging students
- Honorary Alum Ann Mell showing her Kingswood RIng
- Pet Parade 2025
- With Kingswood colleagues Nancy Ryan, Jessie Sinclair and Kim Alger Norton
- With former colleague Betsy Clark and alumni at reunion
- Coaching Kingswood field hockey