About Lexi

Alexa "Lexi" Ringo was 16 years old, a junior in high school, and leading a happy and productive life that balanced school, extracurricular activities, volunteering, family, and friends. Since early elementary school, she wanted to become a doctor, and by middle school she had decided on the highly competitive University of Florida for college. Her ultimate goal was to become an orthopedic surgeon with a practice in Florida focused on orthopedic trauma (fractures and sprains).

At Winthrop College Prep Academy, Lexi was 5th in her Junior class of 300+ students and held leadership roles in National Honor Society, Student Ambassadors, and Student Government. She was elected Class President for both her Sophomore and Junior years and was planning to pursue a third term as a Senior. She was also in the process of rechartering HOSA at her high school (a club for future medical professionals). For the 2025 golf season, she was MVP of the East Bay Girls Golf Team. This past summer, she received her certificate for completing a 30-hour online course from Harvard Medical School.

Lexi was a dedicated community volunteer, earning more than 600 hours of service for various local organizations. On Saturday mornings, Lexi coached junior golfers for the First Tee Golf Program. She spent Sunday afternoons at Sarasota Memorial Hospital accompanying and engaging with patients. For Metropolitan Ministries, Lexi served in the cafeteria, helped with housekeeping, and worked at the Holiday Tent. However, despite all her planning, prioritizing, and preparations, the child voted "Most Likely to Succeed" by her classmates would never see how far 16 years of good choices would have brought her in life because another person made a series of terrible choices during a single afternoon.

A Preventable Tragedy

On December 26, 2025, after leaving golf practice, Lexi was riding as a passenger while her mother drove. In their residential neighborhood and only a few minutes from home, their car was hit by a drunk driver who ran a stop sign. The drunk driver hit the car's passenger side with so much force that Lexi sustained traumatic head and brain injuries, despite wearing her seat belt and the air bags deploying. Good Samaritans helped at the accident scene, but Lexi had lost a tremendous amount of blood from her head injuries and she was unresponsive. Her mother was able to hold Lexi's hand until the ambulance came to take them to Tampa General Hospital's trauma center. Lexi's father joined them at the hospital shortly before she was pronounced dead, only one hour after the accident occurred. Had she survived the accident, Lexi's brain injuries would have sentenced her to an existence of complete dependence, so it was a blessing that God took Lexi quickly, quietly, and with her dignity.

Lexi was a daughter and a sister. She was a friend. She was a student. She was a teammate. She was a mentor. Most importantly, Lexi lived according to her Christian values, unapologetically.