Eddie Hall lifts himself off the ground from a seated position, balancing on his hands. One leg folds inward as the other effortlessly extends behind him, until his foot reaches his head and rests on his neck.

To the average guy, this may seem impossible, but to Hall, it’s a piece of cake. It’s also one of the key positions, called the “Om” pose, which he will demonstrate in a three-minute routine during the 2014 USA Yoga National Championship in San Antonio, TX, March 14-16.

Hall, 35, director of fitness at Baltimore Fitness and Tennis in Pikesville, won the opportunity after being crowned state champion in November for the second straight year. He placed 14th overall in last year’s national competition, and set a goal of cracking the top 10 this year.

It was only five years ago that Hall walked into Bikram Yoga Hampden to try his first class. Little did he know he’d fall in love with the ancient exercise.

“When I started, I was 185 pounds. I thought I was solid muscle. I thought I was in the best shape of my life but, in the first month, I dropped 20 pounds,” says Hall, who lives with wife Kelly (also a yogi) in Cockeysville.

There’s long been a stigma that men and yoga don’t mix—that the brawnier gender simply can’t stretch to the limber limits of the peaceful practice the way women can.

But Hall wants to break that barrier. He has seen the male-female ratio in yoga classes narrow since he first started, and touts it as an excellent pairing with weight training for gym rats.

“One of my goals through yoga is to get more men involved and show them you don’t have to be a skinny, frail, flexible guy,” he says. “I see more and more athletes coming into the studio. Men from Crossfit, even NFL and Ravens players are doing Bikram yoga. I think it’s really going to change the sport.”

When Debbie Nazelrod opened Spa in the Valley in 2005, she thought it
was perfect—but there was one minor flaw. “I remember a client saying,
‘You built such a beautiful space, but I’m very disappointed with your
bathroom,’” Nazelrod recalls. “And I’m thinking, ‘I just built a salon
so nice that this could be my home,’ but I also knew she was right.”
This feedback led Nazelrod to go all out in the bathrooms at her latest
venture, Spa on the Boulevard. “I take everything a client has to say
seriously,” she says. “Whether it’s positive or negative.”

Nazelrod
has always exhibited this perfectionism in customer service from as far
back as 24 years ago when she opened her modest first salon on South
Charles Street to this past year when she started her new venture, Spa
on the Boulevard. Opened a year ago this month and located in Abingdon’s
bustling Boulevard at Box Hill shopping center, the French-chateau
inspired space is the most recent addition to an ever-expanding
salon-spa beauty empire that includes the Moroccan-themed Spa on the
Avenue in White Marsh and Hunt Valley’s Spa in the Valley with its
Tuscan touches.

“We started with 800 square feet,”
says Nazelrod, 56, who owned and operated several salons prior to her
line Salon By Debbie, “and worked our way up to 11,500 square feet at
this location. I’ve never really been afraid of opening new locations.
All told, we’ve built 27,873 square feet through the years. But we have
always built from something small and then gone to the next location
and the next.”

Salons and spas come and go—and many last as long as a manicure, with cutthroat competition and more firings than an episode of The Apprentice.
But with a staff of 275—including Nazelrod’s devoted daughter who
suffers from a hair-loss disease and has a unique understanding of
guests’ needs—the salons are not only surviving, but thriving. Last
year’s revenues alone (not including the Boulevard, which had yet to
open) were close to $7 million.

“I’ve seen the dream
evolve,” says one of Nazelrod’s longest-running customers, Susan Wiley
who has been with her since the start. “When she was working downtown,
I’d drive all the way from where I live in Baldwin. I’d tell her, ‘Get
out of the city and come to the county.’ I’d say, ‘Trust me. You’ll have
customers. If you build it, we will come.’”

And they
have. With all locations open seven days a week—many salons
traditionally take Monday off—Nazelrod’s client base includes some
170,000 customers who flock for soothing stone massages, oatmeal and
licorice body treatments, balayage hair highlights, Brazilian bikini
waxings, lash extensions, and Ayurvedic facials. The spaces themselves
are immaculate and inspired (by trips to spas in Sonoma County, CA;
South Beach, FL; Florence, Italy; and other destinations), and services
such as a signature nearly two-hour Ultimate Facial (entailing
everything from extraction to a total body massage) are unique and keep
the appointment books brimming.

“I started coming
for facials and waxing,” says Wiley. “Now, they take care of this whole
61-year-old deal. I would never think of going anywhere else. A lot of
people put lip service to customer service and innovation, but Debbie
actually makes it happen. Debbie is a perfectionist who anticipates what
you need before you know you need it, and she has always been very good
at figuring out what is trending.”

The accolades
keep coming. Nazelrod has practically papered her walls with awards,
including America’s “200 Fastest-Growing Salons” by Salon Today, one of Baltimore’s Largest Women-Owned Businesses by the Baltimore Business Journal, and Top Female CEO by SmartCEO (not to mention numerous “Top Salons” nods from this magazine).

How
Debbie has done it boils down to a combination of pluck, passion, and
purpose. Sitting in the garden room—a relaxation area at the Spa on the
Boulevard with peach-colored walls, palm plants, and soft music—Nazelrod
seems to marvel at how she built a business from a single salon to
become a major player on the salon-spa scene.

“[My
husband] Rick and I both grew up in tiny row homes in Loch Raven
Village,” explains Nazelrod. “I come from a family of four children, and
Rick came from a family of five. My father was a firefighter and worked
his way up to lieutenant with Baltimore City. My mother was a
seamstress in a sweatshop.”

For Rick’s part, his
father worked for a Baltimore printing company as a bookbinder and his
mother worked part-time at Read’s drug store in Towson. Both grew up
understanding the value of hard work, though entrepreneurship was not on
the radar.

“We were both from blue-collar families,” says
Rick, who has known Nazelrod since she was nine and the best friend of
his younger sister. (They didn’t date until many years later, after they
both found themselves divorced.) “You work until a certain hour, and
you come home to eat dinner with your family—that kind of thing. If we
had tried to plan all of this as our life’s dream, it never would have
worked.”

While still in high school, Nazelrod, who always
loved playing with makeup, went to work for About Faces. “I worked
part-time as a receptionist for [then owner] Gloria Brennan,” explains
Nazelrod. “I felt at home there right away.” But when it came time to
pick a profession, Nazelrod felt limited in her options. “Since I had
come from a blue-collar family I thought that all I could do was be a
secretary, a nurse, or a teacher.”

But it was Gloria’s
then-husband Patrick Brennan who helped expand her horizons, encouraging
Nazelrod to learn the beauty trade and then work for him on the floor.
By 1980, she became an aesthetician and continued to work at About Faces
in Pikesville for 13 years, where she built a client base thanks to her
sunny personality and commitment to hard work.

Patrick says
he’s not surprised by his former employee’s success. “She was always
committed and competent,” he recalls. “She had good customer-service
skills as well as being client oriented and good technically—Debbie is very good at what she does.” (Though there are no hard feelings, About Faces is now a direct competitor.)

A
large part of Nazelrod’s success is also due to the fact that she has
surrounded herself with members of her own, extremely close-knit
family—all of whom are involved in aspects of the business. Her
27-year-old daughter Amanda Jeffries is the general manager at the
Boulevard and Nazelrod is currently grooming her, so to speak, to take
over the business in the years to come. Amanda has also been
instrumental in helping to forge ahead with plans for a dedicated
hair-loss area installed at Spa on the Boulevard for those who suffer
from thinning hair, hair loss due to chemotherapy, and other conditions.

Ironically, Jeffries herself suffers from alopecia (a
condition in which hair is lost from some or all areas of the body,
usually from the scalp), which necessitates wearing a hairpiece, as well
as having her eyebrows tattooed on. “I would love to be able to help
others going through similar issues,” says Jeffries. “It definitely has
been a journey; a lot of tears and heartache.” But Jeffries’s struggles
have also proven of value on the job. “I am able to understand our
guests’ needs and appreciate that hair can change one’s image,” she
says. “While I face challenges every day—bad hair days, eyelash
problems, and hating summer weather—I love my job and surrounding myself
with watching our guests transform.”

While Amanda is
stationed on the Boulevard, Nazelrod’s son, Joe, does the bookkeeping
for all three locations (“I can honestly say there’s nothing bad about
working with my family,” he says); Nazelrod’s stepson, Tim, does the
electrical work; and Rick, who in the early days did the major
construction work on her smaller spaces, is in charge of facilities
management.

“There was a time when I did the drawings, I framed
everything out, and did the spackling and painting,” he says. In those
early days, Debbie’s salons were very much a grassroots, DIY affair. “We
had so much help from friends and family,” says Nazelrod. “I have a
picture [hanging in my foyer] that I purchased in Amish country of a
barn raising. It reminded me so much of what our friends and family have
done.”

And anyone who isn’t family still gets treated as
such. When a hairstylist needed a kidney transplant, Nazelrod and her
staff raised more than $30,000 at a benefit at Martin’s East, including
proceeds from a staff-written cookbook. “She makes each and every one of
us part of her family,” says longtime employee Megan Dulsky, the
general manager at Spa on the Avenue. Adds Avenue spa manager Elaine
Girardi, “She’s a good person and that helps her attract good people.”

The
love is clearly mutual. With her perfectly applied makeup and eyes that
sparkle when she speaks, Nazelrod gets emotional when she talks about
her staff. “I just came back from a family trip to Jamaica,” she says.
“I had a massage there, and their touch is incredible—you can’t teach
that. You can teach everything else, but they’ve got to have it in
here,” she says pressing on her heart. “Those are the people who I want
here and 98 percent of the people we hire have [that quality].”

When
Nazelrod isn’t spending two days a week at each spa-salon, she and Rick
enjoy season tickets to the Ravens’ games or cooking dinner for family
in their Perry Hall home. Another favorite pastime is hitting the road
in their 40-foot motor coach—“it looks like an apartment,” says
Nazelrod, laughing—for road trips to Key West, Ocean City, and
Gettysburg. “We don’t give gifts for the holiday,” says Nazelrod. “We
give memories.”

Despite the long hours and
occasional headaches that come with running a large group of businesses,
Nazelrod says she couldn’t be more pleased.

“I would
do it again and again,” she says, her voice catching with emotion. “I
love this business. I love being able to take care of my clients to the
point where I watch them walk out that door almost stumbling because,
after coming here, they feel like they are in La La Land.”

Judge Elsbeth Bothe, 85

In her more than 20 years as an activist criminal defense attorney, Elsbeth Bothe made no secret of her determined liberal streak, defending civil-rights workers in Mississippi and, locally, protestors trying to end Gwynn Oak amusement park’s whites-only policy. She also served as an assistant public defender for the state and as the American Civil Liberties Union counsel.

And she made no secret of her distaste for capital punishment, writing in a 1976
Sun op-ed piece, “Incidence of murder bears no relationship to the existence of the death penalty.” Nonetheless, upon her ascension to the city’s Circuit Court in 1978, she pledged to follow the letter of the law, despite her personal aversion to capital punishment—and she did so up until her 1995 retirement.

A girlhood interest in true crime manifested itself later in her preference for murder cases—she sometimes lobbied other judges to trade their murder trials for one of her less-heinous-offense assignments—and she amassed shelves of books on the subject of homicide.

“She was like a character straight out of a Genet novel, if he hadn’t been such an angry writer,” says filmmaker John Waters, her longtime friend. “What other judge decorated her chambers with human skulls and scary hangmen, yet fought for civil rights and was against capital punishment? Her epitaph should read ‘She Sure Was Something!’”

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Tom Clancy, 66

Tom Clancy wrote 26 books in 28 years, 17 of which topped The New York Times’ best-seller list, with more than 100 million copies extant. Five of his novels featuring his principal protagonist, the patriotic-to-the-core Jack Ryan, were adapted into mega-box-office Hollywood films; several of his books were retrofitted into popular ultra-realistic video games.

All of this made Clancy extremely wealthy. He purchased an 80-acre Southern Maryland farm with a view of the Chesapeake, a 17,000-square-foot aerie in downtown’s Ritz-Carlton (price: $16.6 million), a big chunk (24 percent) of the Orioles, and a surplus Army tank. Pretty remarkable for a man who spent more than 20 years slaving as an insurance salesman before publication of his first novel,
The Hunt for Red October, in 1984. Just as remarkably, that book completely transformed the thriller genre, as Clancy larded it—and his subsequent novels—with a geeky verisimilitude (technical descriptions of small-scale weaponry, large-scale military hardware, international spy agencies) that registered with readers. Wrapped around these details: compelling, intricately woven tales of global intrigue, mayhem, and valor.

“Clancy had a good understanding of the big picture with regards to his core Jack Ryan narratives,” points out Bill U’Ren, assistant professor of English at Goucher College’s Kratz Center for Creative Writing. “He was shrewd enough to move Ryan through a range of conflicts while others of his genre trapped themselves in the Cold War milieu.”

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Richard Ben Cramer, 62

Red-bearded, cigar-chomping Richard Ben Cramer cut a distinctive swath from his time as editor of Johns Hopkins’ student-run News-Letter through his career as a reporter for The Baltimore Sun and The Philadelphia Inquirer, national magazine freelancer, and author of 1992’s What It Takes, his doorstop-sized account of the 1988 presidential campaign.

Not yet 30, he copped a Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for incisive, innovative, immersive reporting for the Inquirer on the complex political events embroiling the Middle East. His 1984
Esquire profile of William Donald Schaefer (whom Cramer called “Mayor Annoyed”) adroitly portrayed the occasionally prickly city chief exec. And while poorly received when first published, his What It Takes has since attained revered status.

“Cramer was legendary in
The Sun newsroom, and his career there was not without some, um, infamous moments,” recalls acclaimed mystery novelist and ex-Sun staffer Laura Lippman. “But he wrote a book that might be the last of its kind. If there is an afterlife, I like to think he’s hanging out with William Donald Schaefer.”

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Mary Corey, 49

When veteran
Baltimore Sun staffer Mary Corey took over as newsroom boss—officially, she was senior vice president and director of content—in 2010, morale at the city’s paper of record had plummeted to an absolute nadir in the wake of massive layoffs and buyouts in the previous two years. The term “newspaper morgue” had assumed a whole new significance. But through a potent combination of her well-honed editorial, administrative, and social skills, Corey led the decimated staff out of the abyss.

In 2012,
The Sun copped the Newspaper of the Year award from the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association, along with a fistful of other top prizes in the competition. Additionally, Corey resurrected The Sun Magazine 14 years after its demise, and injected the Sunday paper with useful, engaging newsy features pertaining to medicine, science, federal government employment, and ongoing Sun investigations.   

“Mary’s success as a journalist—from intern to top editor—drew on her many gifts: an ability to become interested in just about anything, a charm that disarmed people and got them talking, an A-student’s diligence and drive, the joy of telling a story,” notes Rebecca Corbett, senior enterprise editor for
The New York Times and Corey’s friend. “That she was doing it in her hometown, a place she knew and loved—this was a woman who chose to live in a row house, after all—made the journalism all the richer.”

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Rev. Vernon Dobson, 89

As a minister, community activist, and, not least, civil-rights leader, Vernon Dobson advocated and agitated for equality, fairness, and justice for all Baltimoreans, especially its poor, for more than a half-century.

A prominent member of the “Goon Squad”—a group of black leaders that also included Parren Mitchell, Madeline Murphy, and Rev. Marion Bascom, among others—Dobson helped desegregate the city’s Gwynn Oak amusement park in 1963, and, later that year, aided Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in organizing the historic March on Washington. Two years later, he joined King in one of the civil-rights movement’s signature events, the march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama.

Back in Baltimore, Dobson teamed with developer James Rouse to help establish the Maryland Food Bank in 1968, after riots following King’s assassination decimated vast areas of the city. And in 1977, he co-founded BUILD (Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development) to administer to the everyday needs of the city’s underserved population, in the process reviving the Sandtown neighborhood near his parish, West Baltimore’s Union Baptist Church, and working toward passage of living-wage legislation in the city.

“Vernon Dobson was a man who was larger than life itself—in his body, with his booming voice, in the way he used words,” says WEAA talk-show host Marc Steiner. “He put his life on the line to end segregation, for civil rights and human rights, and for his parishioners.” 

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Edward Dopkin, 61

By the time Eddie Dopkin hurtled to the head of the local restaurateur class in 2005 with his unpretentious, Southern-inflected Miss Shirley’s breakfast spot, he already had logged 30-plus years in the catering/dining business. Starting in the 1970s, Dopkin learned what worked and what didn’t at his parents’ Beef Inn.   

He went out on his own at Harborplace in the 1980s with the Bagel Place——simultaneously leading the twin pavilions’ first merchants’ group——which grew to include multiple Baltimore-Washington locations, and in the 1990s/2000s built a North Baltimore restaurant empire: Tex-Mex-y Loco Hombre; the adjacent Alonso’s Pub; and the instantly successful Miss Shirley’s, which moved to a larger spot nearby to accommodate adoring fans before adding outposts downtown and in Annapolis. Dopkin put S’ghetti Eddie’s in the former Miss Shirley’s space.

“Eddie Dopkin was a visionary who cared about the success of the restaurant industry as a whole,” says Marshall Weston Jr., president/CEO of the Restaurant Association of Maryland. “He understood the value of all Baltimore restaurants doing well, not just his own.”

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Art Donovan, 89

Art Donovan lived—and played—large. The Baltimore Colts’ defensive lineman ate prodigiously unhealthful meals: hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and pizza, chased by beer. He made spectacularly huge plays: His crucial tackle preceded the Colts winning drive in the 1958 NFL championship game. And he recounted hilariously gargantuan tales about himself, professional football, and, as he once characterized them, “the oversized coal miners and West Texas psychopaths” who played it.

Deceptively agile for 270 to 300 pounds, Donovan batted aside his offensive counterparts to ruthlessly yank down opposing teams’ running backs and quarterbacks from 1950 through the 1961 season, earning Pro Bowl status five times and helping the Colts win back-to-back NFL championships in 1958 and 1959.    

Out of football, he owned liquor stores and Valley Country Club in Towson, and, upon publication of his successful 1987 autobiography, Fatso, he found a national audience for a second time as a self-effacing, Runyonesque raconteur on a handful of TV talk shows, including 10 appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, who clearly relished Donovan’s instinctual delivery and humor.

“In a city of everymen, Artie Donovan personified Everyman,” says Stan Charles, founder and publisher of PressBox. “He was a splash of color when pictures were still black and white, and he somehow became even more colorful as time allowed the full body of his life to show its rich textures.”

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Jack Germond, 85

An unapologetic old-school journalist, Jack Germond doggedly covered national politics, including 10 presidential elections, from his base in Washington, D.C., as a reporter, editor, columnist, author, and media pundit for the final 44 years of a five-decade career. He first gained renown on his own as political editor of
The Washington Star, and, more famously, from 1977 until 2000, with his five-days-a-week “Politics Today” column writing partner, Jules Witcover, at the Star, Evening Sun, and Baltimore Sun.

Equally unapologetic about his liberalism, Germond held forth as a quick-thinking talking head on a passel of TV public affairs programs, most notably The McLaughlin Group.

“Jack Germond was not only a columnist——he was a reporter-columnist,” notes Baltimore Sun writer and WYPR talk show host Dan Rodricks. “He worked the phone, he worked the room, and he and Jules Witcover knocked it out, day after day, year after year——smart and timely commentary based on fresh reporting, zero-tolerance for political BS, and decades of knowledge between them.”

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Earl Weaver, 82

While Earl Weaver’s oft-quoted mantra for winning—“pitching, defense, and the three-run homer”—serves as a useful encapsulation of his baseball philosophy, it conveniently obscures the complexity, insight, innovation, resourcefulness, and sheer brilliance that made him not only the best manager in Orioles history but also among the best ever in baseball.

Same goes for the raw statistics: In his 17 years here, he shepherded the Orioles to five 100-win (or more) seasons, four American League championships, and four World Series appearances, winning one, in 1970; but the numbers omit how he accomplished those feats. With astounding consistency, Weaver coaxed the maximum performance from each of his available 25 players—the stars (Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell) and the lesser mortals (John Lowenstein, Rick Dempsey, Tippy Martinez)—to fashion formidably versatile teams. Presciently in the pre-computer era, he used comprehensive statistics, compiled on fraying index cards, to devise strategy and execute it in crucial game situations. Not forgetting his pyrotechnical encounters with umpires, resulting in a record-setting 91 ejections.

“Managing is not like playing baseball,” Weaver told author Louis Berney for his 2004 book, Tales From the Orioles Dugout. “Maybe if I was the type of guy that didn’t care if we won or lost, it would have been a different situation. But that’s why I went crazy with umpires. Because we have to win. We have to win. I’m that kind of guy.”

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Blaster Al Ackerman, 74

Something of an éminence grise to the city’s cultural underground, his subtly subversive and disarmingly frolicsome writing and visual/spoken art tapped into the subcultural pulse via a blizzard of mail-art and small-press works to explore various dark-hued phenomena, particularly madness.

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Donnie Andrews, 58

West Baltimore drug dealer, robber, and murderer (for which he was sentenced to a life term) renounced his thuggish ways, cooperating with authorities to eradicate a drug gang. His life served as a model for the Omar Little character on David Simon’s Emmy-winning, set-in-Baltimore drama
The Wire.

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Judge Howard Gary Bass, 70

Brought a gentle sense of whimsicality and a comfortable environment to proceedings during his 29-plus years on the Baltimore District Court bench——for plaintiffs, defendants, and their attorneys——earning him this magazine’s award for “Best Traffic Court Judge” in 1995.

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Paul Blair, 69

Orioles center fielder.
Our remembrance is here →

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Phyllis Brotman, 79

Exuberant, savvy, and versatile public relations/advertising/marketing exec successfully represented an array of A-list clients, notably Black & Decker and CareFirst, as well as the city itself as a key member of Mayor William Donald Schaefer’s inner circle. Also served as the first woman president of The Center Club and played a key role in launching MPT.

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Rev. Dr. Harold A. Carter Sr., 76

As pastor of West Baltimore’s New Shiloh Baptist Church for nearly five decades, he oversaw its expansion to include senior housing, a children’s center, music school, and theological institute, while also vigorously advocating for the civil/political/economic rights among the city’s disenfranchised.

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Robert Chew, 52

Actor and educator appeared on David Simon’s
Homicide and The Corner before memorably embodying intimidating drug kingpin Proposition Joe on Simon’s The Wire. Additionally, he taught young actors at the Arena Players Youth Theatre, guiding 22 of them in their roles during season four of The Wire.

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John Coolahan, 80

First in the House of Delegates (1967-1970) and then during two stretches in the State Senate (1971-1978, 1983-1986) representing Southwest Baltimore County, he tilted right politically, strongly pushing for a state lottery and vociferously opposing a city light-rail system. Served as a District Court judge after his General Assembly tenure.

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Gerald Curran, 74

Congenial old-school politician from storied office-holding Irish Catholic family, quietly but effectively represented Northeast Baltimore in the House of Delegates from 1967 to 1998, advocating vigorously in favor of state aid to parochial schools.

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Dr. John Dennis, 90

Helped transform the University of Maryland Medical School into a premier institution as its dean from 1973 to 1990, emphasizing biomedical research, clinics, and basic sciences, while spearheading the construction of a new downtown Veterans Health Aministration hospital.

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Isaiah “Ike” Dixon, 90

As a four-term member of the House of Delegates representing Baltimore City in the 1960s and 1970s, serious-minded legislator championed insurance-industry issues and guided a bill to passage that elevated the state’s cross-burning law from misdemeanor to felony.

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Joseph Eubanks, 88

Acclaimed bass-baritone toured the world in a mid-1950s production of Porgy and Bess, before settling in as a Morgan State University professor from 1962 to 1985, teaching voice, opera, and music theory, while directing the school’s two musical theaters and its choir and performing locally.

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Youman Fullard Sr., 73

Cheerfully served up heaping mounds of heart-stopping soul food——fried chicken, short ribs, candied yams——as co-owner/operator (along with his wife) of Greenmount Avenue’s Yellow Bowl Restaurant, attracting visiting celebs as well as a stream of local politicians, who treated the place as their clubhouse.

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Rita Marie Furst, 94

The 1981 murder of her husband spurred her to advocate on behalf of crime victims, notably co-founding the Maryland Coalition Against Crime. Her efforts led the General Assembly to pass legislation that ensured families be apprised of convicted criminals’ parole status and permitted family members to give impact statements at sentencing.

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Otis R. “Damon” Harris Jr., 62

After performing with several Baltimore vocal groups, he replaced Eddie Kendricks as lead tenor with The Temptations in 1971. During his four-year stint, they scored a national No. 1 hit with “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone.” Later, he worked tirelessly to raise awareness among African-American men of their high risk for prostate cancer.

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Hattie Harrison, 84

Represented East Baltimore in the House of Delegates from 1973 until her death——the chamber’s longest-serving member——chairing its Rules & Executive Nominations Committee while actively crusading for education, assault-weapons control, and social justice for minorities and women.

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Christopher Hartman, 67

Boisterous press spokesman for Mayor William Donald Schaefer kept his boss and the city in the national spotlight, famously staging the mayor’s dip in the National Aquarium’s seal pool wearing a Gay-Nineties swimsuit and straw hat while clutching a rubber duck. Earlier, he launched the City Fair.  

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Jean Hill, 67

City schoolteacher went on to become a plus-size greeting card model while acting, directing, and designing costumes for Arena Players. Achieved cult-star status in John Waters’s 1977 film
Desperate Living as murderous maid Grizelda Brown, followed by appearances in his movies Polyester and A Dirty Shame.

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Shirley Howard, 88

After enjoying minor celebrityhood on local TV in the 1950s, she established the Children’s Cancer Foundation with her husband in 1984, raising millions of dollars to fund research at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, University of Maryland Medical Center, and the National Cancer Institute, among other institutions.

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Richard Hug, 78

Personable founder/CEO of air-pollution moderation firm raised millions of dollars for state Republican Party candidates, including gubernatorial runs by Ellen Sauerbrey in 1998 and Robert Ehrlich in 2002 and 2006; also oversaw Maryland fundraising for George W. Bush’s two presidential campaigns.

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Leonard Kerpelman, 88

Activist attorney represented atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair in her case against mandatory prayer in Maryland’s public schools, shepherding the case to the Supreme Court, which, in 1963, ruled in his client’s favor, outlawing the practice. Later worked for divorced fathers’ equal rights in custody cases.  

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Mick Kipp, 51

Possessed of an uber hail-fellow-well-met personality, animated bartender presided over the proceedings at Camden Yards-area Pickles Pub for 25 years, sometimes while attired in pirate garb. On the side, he launched a company that made specialty rubs, salsas, and hot sauces devised from his own recipes.  

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Isabel Klots, 96

Widow of esteemed portrait/landscape/still-life painter Trafford Klots poured her energies into maintaining his artistic legacy after his 1976 death, including endowing the Maryland Institute College of Art’s annual summertime residency for artists at the couple’s chateau in Brittany, France.

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Toni Linhart, 70

Austrian-born, soccer-style placekicker spent five-plus seasons with the city’s old NFL franchise, the Colts, helping lead the team to three consecutive AFC East titles in the 1970s and twice being selected to the Pro Bowl. Staying on here in retirement, he worked in community service.

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Ann Miller, 97

City Health Department nurse founded and served as first executive director of the Maryland Food Bank, which coordinates donations of surplus items from retailers, wholesalers, and distributors to annually give nearly 450,000 pounds of food to 600 soup kitchens, pantries, and shelters statewide.

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Steven Muller, 85

As president of The Johns Hopkins University and Hopkins Hospital in the 1970s and 1980s, he engineered the tremendous growth of both institutions—increasing operating budgets, overseeing a $400-million fundraising campaign—while burnishing their reputations nationally and internationally.

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Lawrence “Larry” Simns Sr., 75

Led the Maryland Watermen’s Association from its 1973 inception until his death. In his negotiations with the state Department of Natural Resources, he constantly balanced the interests of his constituency with the need to protect the dwindling numbers of Chesapeake Bay fish, crabs, and oysters.

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William Stump, 90

Longtime
Sun writer took over Baltimore magazine in 1964, beefing up its journalistic voice while positioning the monthly to eventually move from a Chamber of Commerce publication to complete independence. Finished out his career overseeing the now-defunct News American’s editorial page.

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Gus Triandos, 82

Likable, lumbering, power-hitting catcher during the Orioles’ formative mid-to-late 1950s years was named an All-Star four times, and famously caught Hoyt Wilhelm’s 1-0 no-hitter win over the New York Yankees in 1958, the Orioles’ first, while providing the lone run with a seventh-inning homer.

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John Wood, 80

City sanitation worker stockpiled residents’ discarded appliances——air conditioners, TVs, washing machines——and assorted detritus at his Northeast Baltimore home, often fixing them and giving them to needy neighbors. Those efforts, plus his help-everyone community spirit, inspired the 1990s television show
Roc.

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Charlie Zill, 56

Armed with an orange fiddle and dressed in overalls and a straw hat, lanky Camden Yards usher rolled out his “Zillbilly” dance routine to the strains of John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” from the stadium’s upper deck during the seventh-inning stretch of Orioles home games.

As you note in the book, painted screens originated in London in the 1700s. Why did they become so popular in Baltimore? One reason: working-class rowhouses. Baltimore’s architecture required an intervention in the name of privacy. Painted screens, because you can see out and no one can see in, provided that measure of privacy for people living in rowhouses with no front yards. They also gave much-needed ventilation in the summer. An East Baltimore shopkeeper named William Oktavec figured that out 100 years ago, and he painted and sold a lot of screens to his neighbors. And being like your neighbor was something that was prized, so the screens multiplied quickly.

Who were the legendary Baltimore screen painters? There was Johnny Eck, who was a student of Okatavec’s, and Ruth Chrysam was an apprentice of Oktavec’s. There were screen painters and jack-of-all-trades like Ben and Ted Richardson. There were also youngsters like Tom Lipka from Canton.

Any favorites? They’re ALL my favorites—that’s why I wrote the book! Each of them had his or her own wonderful style and reason for going into screen painting.

What did they paint, and what was the source material for that imagery? They often painted nature scenes, or landmark buildings from the old country—the immigrants’ countries of origin, places like Poland or Czechoslovakia—or just about anything found on a greeting card or calendar. They were used because they were easily found and easily copied.

What factors affect the popularity of painted screens, which seems cyclical? The use of air conditioners in the 1950s and 1960s was a major factor. So were the changing demographics of East Baltimore in the 1990s, due largely to social mobility and the aging out of the original population. Modernization of home doors and windows is also a factor, as homeowners remodel and materials change from wood to metal to vinyl. Also, painted screens were embarrassingly affordable into the 1990s. From then on, they were valued as one-of-a-kind custom art and were priced accordingly. The cycle has been up and down for 100 years. Now, we’re experiencing something of a resurgence.

Who are the contemporary screen painters who are keeping the tradition alive, or even reinventing it? People like Dee Herget, the Lipka family, John Oktavec (the grandson of William), Anna Pasqualucci, Monica Broere, John Iampieri, and Pat Michalski. Monica does a sort of mash up of traditional and abstract, Anna paints minutely detailed pieces, and John is a great colorist who produces these mural-like screens for large windows and porches.

Why was the University Press of Mississippi a good home for this book? They are finest folk art press in America. And thanks to a partnership with the Mellon Foundation, we were able to add incredible production values to the book. Producing a coffee table book with over 300 color photos for $35 is unheard of. I think they realized it’s a book that will be evergreen. I feel it’s a book every Baltimorean will want to own, and it will also appeal to people who care about what makes cities beautiful and livable.

For a split second, Lucas Roque seemed suspended in mid air, his back parallel to the green artificial turf, his eyes focused on the soccer ball he was about to rocket off his right foot.When Roque’s circus-like flip kick improbably—impossibly, really—sailed past the stunned Missouri Comets goalkeeper, delivering the Blast the decisive blow in March’s final Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) championship game, he became the latest legend in the storied franchise’s decade of dominance. Most Baltimore fans know the Joe Flacco-to-Jacoby Jones play in Denver much better, but Roque’s bicycle kick, as the rare soccer feat is known, was a sports “miracle” materialized from skill and luck. And for Blast fans—a decidedly smaller, yet no less passionate bunch than their NFL or MLB counterparts—it’s every bit as significant.

“It couldn’t be a better ending,” says the Brazilian forward, who is entering his second season with the team. “I couldn’t say we were going to win after the goal because there was still a lot of time left. But I was praying it would be the winning goal.”

You’ll have to excuse Baltimore sports fans if, after a 2012-13 season that saw them celebrate a Super Bowl win, baseball resurrection, and the Blast’s title, they truly believe that God’s ears were attuned to Charm City.
Call the Ravens run dominant and the Orioles rebirth overdue. There’s only one way to characterize the Blast, a team that has won six championships in 11 years.

As a dynasty.

This season, which began this month with the Blast hanging its latest championship banner from the Baltimore Arena rafters, marks the 34th consecutive year of professional indoor soccer in the city. The sport essentially is an Americanized version of the so-called “beautiful game”—soccer with amped up speed and scoring.

Six men per side play balls off the boards and substitute on the fly, hockey-style. As in basketball, goals count for two or three points, so leads can turn into deficits in the blink of an eye.

“Indoor soccer is definitely end-to-end,” says defender Pat Healey, a Calvert Hall grad. “There’s a lot of action, a lot of goals, and the game can transition very quickly. You’re never really out of a game.”

Like its pro-football history, Baltimore’s indoor soccer lineage includes several franchises playing in various leagues. The current iteration dates to 1998, when developer and former 1st Mariner Bank CEO Ed Hale reacquired the team (he previously owned it from 1989-1992) and changed its name from the Spirit back to the Blast.

While the Blast’s fortunes rose, the vitality of the sport itself wavered. Indoor soccer enjoyed its heyday in the ’80s and early ’90s, when crowds in Baltimore and cities like Dallas and Cleveland threatened five digits. But as the economy shifted downward, sponsorships and ticket sales, which along with merchandise and summer camps encompass virtually all of an indoor-soccer franchise’s revenue, fell. Last year, the Blast averaged about 6,000 fans per game. The MISL, which at one point dropped to just five teams, will include seven this season.

Earlier this year, the team moved its headquarters from Du Burns Arena in Canton to a nondescript office park in Rosedale. It practiced at the Northeast Regional Recreation Center in Baltimore County. Unlike after previous title-winning seasons, Blast players, who earn between $1,500 and $4,000 a month, did not receive championship rings. (Many coach soccer or work at summer camps to supplement their income.)

“Let’s face it: We went through a very tough time in our country with the economy, and I’m proud to say that our Baltimore franchise and the league were able to get through it,” says Blast president and general manager Kevin Healey (and Pat’s father), who was among Hale’s initial hires in 1998. “The overall health of the league is trending upwards.”
After taking over, one of Healey’s first moves was to sign native New Yorker Danny Kelly to play midfield.

That trio of leadership—Hale, Healey, and Kelly—remains intact today. Kelly, now the head coach, has won three titles with the Blast, two as a player and one as a player-coach. He understands that Hale and Healey’s expectations never change.

“Our goal is to reach the championship every year,” Healey says. “If we reach the final and don’t win it, we don’t feel like we had a great year.”

Devout Blast fan Kathy Reynolds was in some serious pain. She had just undergone emergency surgery to correct a bowel blockage and remove a gallstone. Doctors released her from the hospital three days later—Friday night at 7:30. The next day, she went to see her beloved team play. Since attending her first game eight-and-a-half years ago, Reynolds has only missed two, both for “really big” church events.

“My husband and I got married on a Friday before opening night,” she says. “We gave each other season tickets for our wedding gift. We went to the game the night after our wedding and had T-shirts made that said, ‘We celebrated our honeymoon with the Baltimore Blast.’ We won.”

In an era of $40 parking and $10 beer at sporting events, Blast games remain a bargain. Tickets range from $16 to $22 for this year’s 10 home dates. Fans are treated to performances by cheerleaders, contests between quarters, and autograph sessions after the game. Reynolds has been president of the Blast fan club for six years. Last year it had about 250 members, who establish real and lasting relationships with the players at events like bowling nights and season-ending banquets.

“It’s very intimate,” says Paul Kram, who has been going to games with his wife, Sheree, for decades. In 2009 they began attending all the road games, as well. “The players come as rookies, and you watch them develop. You get to know them and their families. If the Ravens or Orioles lose, I’m disappointed as a fan. When the Blast lose, I’m really disappointed for the players.”

A little more than a year ago, Kram’s mother passed away. At the viewing in Dundalk, his wife noticed Ed Hale’s mother make her way into the funeral home.

“A few minutes later Ed Hale came by to pay his respects,” Kram says, his voice cracking. “Neither of them knew my mom. Later that evening Danny Kelly came. They had just found out from somebody and made it a point to come. That was stunning to me.”

“We have the best fans in the league without a doubt,” says forward Marco Mangione, whose father, Nick, also played for the Blast. “They support us through the good times and bad times, and we try to give back to them as much as possible.”

The Blast started last season looking up at rival Chicago in the standings before eventually securing the best record in the league and home-field advantage for the four-team playoff. The team advanced to the final, where it defeated Missouri in Game 1 of the best-of-three series (if needed, the decider would be a 15-minute mini-game played immediately after Game 2). Back in Baltimore, the Comets took a 4-0 lead into halftime.

A power play goal got the Blast on the board and energized the crowd. A few minutes later, Roque electrocuted it. A first-year member of the team who was signed after a tryout, the 25-year-old from São Paulo grew up playing a sport called “footvolley” on the beaches of his homeland.

“We do a lot of bicycle kicks, so I always had the ability to hit the ball in the air,” he says. “When I saw the ball coming off the wall it was high; a bicycle kick was the only way. I couldn’t believe I scored that goal in such an important moment.”

Neither could anyone else in the arena. Roque popped up off the turf, started pulling on his red-and-yellow jersey, and ran as a mob of his teammates chased him. Fans behind the goal reacted as if they’d just seen Muhammad Ali knock out George Foreman.

“I was on the bench, and my jaw just dropped,” says defender Pat Healey. “The place went crazy. You couldn’t ask for a better picture.”

The title wasn’t officially secured until a Missouri free kick was cleared away in the final seconds, but after “The Goal,” victory seemed fated.

When the final horn sounded, Kelly allowed himself to exhale.

“It’s an indescribable feeling, because everything you’ve worked so hard for you’ve accomplished in one moment,” he says.

After the arena finally emptied, a group of players, coaches, and fans walked a few blocks to Pratt Street Ale House, where they kicked back a few pints and celebrated winning another championship. Together.

Will the champagne (and beer) flow in Baltimore for an eighth time when the season’s champion is crowned in March?
“I’m expecting this group to compete for a title,” Kelly says. “We have most of the pieces back. Things look good, but can we put together the same kinds of performances and gel like we did last year? That remains to be seen.”

For fans of Baltimore’s winningest professional sports franchise, finding out will be a blast.

Mike Unger is a senior contributing writer for Baltimore.

It doesn’t take Joe Ehrmann long to explode dumb-jock stereotypes. Earlier this year, the former Colts great—who’s been called “the most important coach in America”—gave a TED Talk at Morgan State University that brought the audience to its feet, and some listeners to tears, in a little more than 10 minutes. Of all the thinkers and creative types who spoke that day, he was the only one to get a sustained standing ovation. His coaching workshops at the Patterson Park Youth Sports and Education Center are even more startling. Dressed casually in a blue polo shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes, the 64-year-old Ehrmann exudes a gentle power. His seen-it-all expression and upbeat demeanor suggest sadness and hope, which is disarming in a man so large. He works Eastern and Native-American philosophies, mythology, social activism, Christianity, and African-American history into his talk and often sounds more like a self-help guru, or life coach, than a defensive coach.

Someone once asked, prior to a presentation, if he would be discussing offense or defense, and he responded: “Neither. I’ll be talking philosophy.” And that’s pretty much what he does. Ehrmann’s workshops are required for coaches using the park’s new, multipurpose field and sponsored by Living Classrooms Foundation, which hopes to make his teaching program a citywide model.

Ehrmann tells the dozen coaches assembled at the youth center that sports are a vehicle for social change, which elicits a few puzzled looks. He stresses the importance of making sports co-curricular, rather than extra-curricular, so they become an extension of the school day, and he talks about players’ social and intellectual development and the importance of empathy and kindness.

He then pivots into more emotional, and potentially uncomfortable, territory. He insists that hugs are more effective than the histrionics in heavy rotation on SportsCenter and suggests his listeners ask themselves, “How does it feel to be coached by me?” He pauses a moment before saying there are two kinds of coaches: transactional and transformational. The transactional coach uses his players to meet his own needs. The transformational coach, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, helps people recognize things in themselves they otherwise wouldn’t see.

At this point, you can practically see the lightbulbs going off over the heads of his listeners, as they nod in agreement and scribble notes to themselves. Everyone, it seems, has had these types of coaches, and the memories are so clear that Ehrmann doesn’t have to ask which they’d rather be.

Ehrmann, knowing he’s connected with these men, ups the ante even further by saying they must also confront social justice issues, issues that affect the lives of not only their players, but also the community at large. He touches on economic disparity, racism, sexism, gender violence, homophobia, and how social messaging and warped perceptions of masculinity and femininity adversely affect boys and girls.

He covers a remarkable amount of territory over the course of an hour, but never loses sight of his main point: “The playing field is a field of transformation.”

Ehrmann grew up in Buffalo and came to Baltimore in 1973. “They’re both blue-collar, shot-in-your-beer towns,” he says, sitting in his Hunt Valley office, which is filled, not with sports memorabilia, but with books—the range of titles includes Growing Up in America, The Male Ego, and Dean Smith’s A Coach’s Life.

The Colts selected Ehrmann in the first round of the draft, the tenth pick overall, out of Syracuse. A ferocious defensive tackle, he lined up alongside Mike Barnes, Fred Cook, and John Dutton to form the team’s much-vaunted “Sack Pack.” His anger issues, stemming largely from an abusive father, played well on the football field. Off the field, he became a fixture in Fells Point and drank and drugged away his mental and physical pain.

At the height of Ehrmann’s football fame, his 19-year-old brother, Billy, was diagnosed with cancer and admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Coming to grips with his brother’s illness had a sobering effect on Ehrmann, who spent the better part of four months confronting death and suffering in a pediatric oncology ward. “It made me question my purpose in life,” he recalls.

A local psychologist gave him a copy of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. “It was the beginning of a real metamorphosis for me,” recalls Ehrmann, “because Frankl says that the greatest of all human freedoms is the ability to change how you respond to any given situation. No matter what life deals you, you can find meaning in it and add value to it.”

After Billy passed away in 1978, Ehrmann founded Baltimore’s Ronald McDonald House and dedicated it to his brother’s memory. In 1980, his last season with the Colts, he entered the seminary as something of a wounded warrior and emerged an ordained minister committed to social justice. By that time, he was married—he met his wife, Paula, through a radio contest in which he was the “celebrity date”—and winding down his football career. He was also looking to make a difference.

He started preaching at Grace Fellowship Church in Timonium and founded a community center, The Door, in East Baltimore. Middle East was an area plagued by all sorts of urban ills, but Ehrmann didn’t shy from the challenge. In fact, he and Paula moved to nearby Buthcers Hill.

“He cared about standing up for those who were unable to stand up for themselves,” says Paula.

“Playing football gave me the opportunity to cross so many social and economic strata,” he says, “and I wanted to confront the discrepancies between the haves and have-nots.”

One day, he ran into Biff Poggi, an old friend from his Colts days, who was delivering a carload of donated food to The Door’s food pantry. As a teenager, Poggi snuck into the weight room during Colts workouts at Goucher College. Some players grumbled and wanted him tossed out, but Ehrmann befriended him. “Even then, he was reflective and kind,” says Poggi.

After reconnecting at The Door, they stayed in touch and talked about football and philosophy. When Poggi was named head coach at Gilman, he asked Ehrmann to be his defensive coordinator. Ehrmann had hoped to coach at Lake Clifton High School but says the city wouldn’t let him, because he wasn’t a teacher. He accepted Poggi’s offer, which changed his life and set him on his current path.

With Poggi’s blessing, Ehrmann brought his holistic approach, philosophical bent, and empathic worldview to the locker room. “When we first started, Biff got it immediately,” recalls Ehrmann. “We were just coaching out of our hearts and trying to create a team where kids could be real and authentic and become good people. We knew that creating more football players wasn’t the answer to any of society’s problems.”

Writer Jeffrey Marx, a former Colts ball boy, followed Gilman’s 2001 season and documented Ehrmann’s approach in his 2003 book, Season of Life, which turned out to be a bestseller. It gave Ehrmann a national platform. “I started getting calls from all over the country,” he says. “After one or two speaking engagements, I saw the power of that book, and I decided to take the message outside [Gilman], while Biff stayed inside. I’ve been on the road almost 10 years now, speaking and conducting workshops.”

Poggi calls his friend’s work “prophetic,” and Ehrmann’s client list includes the NFL, NCAA, and the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. But as Matt Hanna, a coach at the Patterson Park workshop notes, “What Joe does is the missing link in a lot of settings. He teaches things that should be common sense.” And Ehrmann himself will tell you the scope of his work has evolved to become “much broader than the sports piece.”

His four children are grown and out of the house, so he can devote more time to expanding his reach. Because his message applies to just about any community setting imaginable (from the boardroom to the classroom), he’s also worked with the Naval and Coast Guard academies, Teach For America, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, family shelters, and companies such as Verizon and Boeing.

He works with Living Classrooms through its Target Investment Zone, which provides a variety of services to East Baltimore neighborhoods. “We’ve admired Joe for many years, and he became a founding partner of that program,” says Living Classrooms President and CEO James Piper Bond, who views Ehrmann’s efforts as “a health-and-wellness initiative more than simply a sports program.”

These days, Ehrmann also focuses a lot of energy on the issues of child sexual abuse and gender violence. After scandals at the likes of Penn State and Vanderbilt, he feels compelled to speak out and raise awareness. “Addressing all these issues is basically the same work I did at The Door, just on a macro level,” says Ehrmann. “You know, you don’t have to be poor to be concerned about poverty. You don’t have to be black to be concerned about racism. You don’t have to be a woman to be concerned about sexism.

“There’s a power in the collective, in learning about and from other people. That’s how you build a team.”

Clutching her iPad to her chest, Irena Stein stands in the midst of the spacious, gleaming, sunlight-filled room that, in less than a month, will morph into a natural-foods cafe in The Johns Hopkins University’s remodeled Mudd Hall, her third on the Homewood campus. She lay awake for hours the night before mulling the final candidates for the new spot’s name—”My head is still spinning,” she says, drawing circles in the air with her right index finger—and now, 12 hours later, she runs the possibilities by her Dutch-born logo/website/signage designer Maarten Ottens—Amiel, Deseo, Acanto, and Baio. Finally, in keeping with the A-team motif of her two existing restaurants—Azafrán and Alkimia—they agree on Acanto (Spanish for the acanthus plant family).

Hopkins gave Stein the official go-ahead for the project only days earlier, and with just three weeks until its late-August launch, she frets about financing the venture and hiring suitable new employees. “The staff is what worries me the most,” she confides, “but we’ll figure it out.”

That Zen-like sensibility—she’s a practicing, not proselytizing, Buddhist—typifies Stein, 60, whose background in social work, cultural anthropology, and jewelry design defines her responsible and artistic approach to food selection, preparation, and presentation.

Fifteen minutes and a brisk walk away, she makes a pit stop at Alkimia (from the Arabic “al-kimiya,” for “alchemy”), her takeaway cafe in Gilman Hall, alternating between English and French as she confers with its Paris-raised manager, and then heads back to her office at her signature cafe Azafrán (Spanish for “saffron”), located in the Steven Muller Building—home of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and the center of the Hubble Telescope’s science operations—on the far fringes of the JHU campus. There, she deftly bounces between English, Spanish, and French while speaking with various members of her Benetton Nation-like staff.

That same cultural internationalism extends to Azafrán itself. Open weekdays and serving fruit salads, yogurt with honey, granola, and breads with homemade jams in the morning—not forgetting its all-day espresso bar—Azafrán devotes its principal energies to lunch, offering a standing menu of creative hot and cold sandwiches, soups, salads, and desserts, plus weekly specials that often reflect national or regional cuisines.

Working one week in advance, Stein personally devises these constantly changing specials—a kale/sausage/roasted potato flatbread entree and a chilled Thai-spiced watermelon with crab soup, to cite two examples—and sources a lot of her foods locally. She shops at farmers’ markets, Asian markets, and Restaurant Depot, augmented by deliveries and pick ups from Maryland purveyors such as Springfield Farm (meats), One Straw Farm (vegetables), Charlottetown Farm (goat cheese), and Black Rock Orchard (fruits). Environmentally conscious, the restaurant adheres to a mostly zero-waste recycling policy.

“For me, to feed people all-natural, homemade food is incredible,” Stein notes. “There is nothing industrial about what we do. If I’m not going to eat it, then I’m not going to have anybody else eat it.

(While Stein’s three cafes largely cater to Hopkins students and staff, they are open to the public as well.)

Fit, vivacious, and invariably dressed in elegantly casual attire, Stein launched Azafrán (what she calls her “improbable cafe”) in 2004 while running a catering business out of her Guilford home and working as a substitute pastry chef for restaurateur/food writer John Shields at The Baltimore Museum of Art-based Gertrude’s.

Back then, AURA—the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, which operates STScI/Hubble—approached Shields about taking over its Muller Building cafeteria. Overwhelmed by a confluence of projects, Shields declined, recommending Stein instead.

“I had known Irena for some time and loved the food that she prepared for caterings and private parties,” Shields explains. “She is one of the best chefs in the Baltimore region—in fact, one of the best I know.”

Stein inherited a dining area that “looked like a boarding school,” she recalls, “with the colors of a McDonald’s and plastic flowers” on the tables, plus a grease-caked kitchen. With AURA and Hopkins footing the bill, she oversaw the space’s complete overhaul, constructing an open kitchen and a comforting setting.

The first six months were shaky, with many diners objecting to Stein’s higher prices and smaller portions. Open your sandwiches, Stein urged her customers, and examine the high-quality contents. Equally vexing: an entrenched super-size mentality. When lunch-goers told her that they weren’t full after a meal, she replied, “Yes, but the idea is that you go back to your office and you’re productive” instead of sluggish and bloated.

In effect, she was teaching her clientele a new way to think about food, about eating—a more European sensibility. This included eliminating massive doses of salt, sugar, and fats. “Slowly, people adapted to our ‘weird,’ multicultural menu,” she says, “until there was a complete level of comfort.”

These days, Azafrán feeds up to 250 people daily: approximately 70 percent researchers, administrators, post-doc and grad students from STScI and the nearby Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy and the Carnegie Institution for Science; 20 percent from the rest of the campus; and 10 percent from surrounding neighborhoods.

Among them, JHU/STScI astrophysicist Adam Riess, a 2011 Nobel Prize laureate in physics, who lunches at Azafrán daily: “I love how they throw hints of various cultures into whatever they do. I just had a special that was a large bruschetta topped with greens, prosciutto, and grilled peach drizzled with a balsamic glaze.”

Another regular, Antonella Nota—associate director for the European Space Agency (ESA) at STScI and a Hubble project scientist at ESA—appreciates the cafe’s “new and original recipes, drawn accurately from the international scene; the fresh and healthy ingredients; and Irena’s artist’s eye in the food presentation.”

Stein comes by her food philosophy naturally, not via a formal culinary education. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, she and three brothers were raised in a nurturing household that respected food, prepared at home daily and eaten together.

“My mom did everything from scratch, all natural, so we grew up cooking,” Stein explains. “It was an upbringing with a tremendous food experience; even though we lived in so many places, even though we traveled so much, we didn’t have any packaged food.”

Her Polish father left his homeland, presciently anticipating World War II, and eventually settled in Venezuela in 1936. He then worked as a film distributor for Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures, taking his Venezuelan wife and their kids to Paris when Irena was six, back to Caracas when she was 10, and then to Brussels when she was 15.

In Brussels, Stein earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from the Institut Supérieur de Formation Sociale in 1976, focusing on community and cultural development, and served for several years afterward as a cultural coordinator working with the city’s impoverished adolescents.

Back in Caracas, she developed cultural programs for both the Venezuelan youth department and the National Library. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, she earned a master’s degree in cultural anthropology from Stanford University in 1982, after which she segued into contemporary jewelry design, creating limited-edition necklaces, brooches, and earrings that she exhibited at juried shows and sold in museum stores in the U.S. and Venezuela, all while living in San Francisco and, not incidentally, raising a daughter, Sofia. (Stein’s 1982 marriage ended in divorce.)

With the majority of her sales and shows based on the East Coast, Stein relocated to Baltimore in 1998 for its proximity to major cities and its affordability. But when a national guilt complex regarding buying luxury goods set in after 9/11, she was forced to call a career-path audible: “I needed to reinvent myself right away.”

Urged by friends to open a restaurant, she began instead by catering events for the local arts community, particularly galleries, working out of her home “in a 1950s kitchen that was falling apart” and the kitchens of two neighbors. Then came the stint with Shields at Gertrude’s and, subsequently, Azafrán.

Since then, Stein has maintained her catering business (using Azafrán’s kitchen), designing menus and brainstorming concepts for an array of arts, community, institutional, and private clients, including Riess, who chose Stein to handle the dinner bash thrown by his MIT fraternity honoring his Nobel laureateship.

In 2010, Hopkins contracted Stein to open Alkimia in Gilman Hall, serving salads, sandwiches, and desserts—ferried from Azafrán—to students, professors, and administrators. (Stein married Mark Demshak, an architect, in the airy, glittering atrium adjacent to Alkimia in 2012.)

Now comes the daunting prospect of preparing Acanto, which will offer a completely different menu from Azafrán and Alkimia. And barring any unforeseen setbacks, Stein will launch her first non-Hopkins-based restaurant next year in North Baltimore, serving what she terms “South American street food”: arepas, empanadas, tamales, and seviche. “I want to leave my Venezuelan imprint on Baltimore,” she says. She already has chosen a name, which, not surprisingly, begins with ‘A’: Alma (Spanish for “soul”).

You can bet that she will infuse the new place with her improbable governing food philosophy. “I want people to have the same pleasure and delight and deliciousness and loveliness as I do in my house,” Stein says. “We serve brilliant people. When they come here for that pleasure, we give it to them. The return is enormous feedback. They’re happy to come. They know what they’re putting in their stomach is very nice.”

Twenty years ago, Joel Lee, a 21-year-old Korean-American beginning his senior year at then-Towson State University, was robbed, shot in the face, and killed while heading to a classmate’s home in Northeast Baltimore. “He wanted to borrow a computer-science book because he was determined to get his grades even higher this year,” his friend, Folashayo Babalola, told The Baltimore Sun after the September 1993 murder. “Joel was very quiet, very ambitious,” Babalola continued. “This has really shaken me. . . . ”

The brutal slaying also shook Baltimore’s Korean-American community, whose leaders still recall the tragedy. Already feeling under siege following attacks directed at Korean-American merchants in the 1980s and 1990s, the Lee case and trial was followed closely in the city. The acquittal of the accused two years later by an almost all African-African jury spurred a protest march downtown and appeared to reflect a troubled relationship between the Korean-American community and traditionally African-American neighborhoods where many of their businesses were located.

(It wasn’t only in Baltimore where relationships between Korean-American merchants and the African-American community were overheating. A year before Lee’s murder, in Los Angeles, Korean store owners were caught in the middle of rioting following the acquittal of white police officers in the beating of Rodney King. In New York, there had been Korean-American store boycotts.)

In Baltimore, there was also a boycott of a Korean-American-owned store, which was eventually closed by the Health Department. And there was a contentious debate over the renovation of the Lafayette and Belair Markets, where Korean-immigrant owners felt they were being pushed out by the city.

Into this fraying backdrop, the Baltimore-based Korean-American Grocers & Licensed Beverage Association of Maryland (KAGRO) was founded in 1995. Forming a nonprofit to help Korean-Americans deal with vendors and navigate the myriad city regulations had been discussed for six months, says Jay Park, who operated a Park Heights liquor store for 25 years and was an early KAGRO president. But the group’s focus quickly expanded in the wake of the Lee trial—which was followed by a wave of four Korean-American store shootings in an eight-day period in January 1997. Immediately, KAGRO began working to build relationships in local communities—starting a scholarship fund, organizing outreach events, and attending meetings. Merchants tried to develop a better relationship with the city police, which had proved a struggle, if for no other reason than the cultural and language barriers.

“The timing [of KAGRO’s launch] wasn’t tied directly to the Lee case,” says Park, “but it concentrated our attention on the most pressing issues we had to deal with, which were not problems with the vendors.”

At his son’s memorial service, Joel Lee’s father said he didn’t “want my son’s death to have no meaning.”

A generation later, Park believes something positive can be connected to that tragedy. “Up until that time, I think we had been looked at and treated differently because of our skin color, our language,” Park says. “But after that, I think people saw us coming together and began to see us as a part of the community, too.”

“Korean-Americans, we don’t have a lot of resources when we arrive.”

But it has never been easy running a corner store in Baltimore. Crime and poverty persist in wide swaths. And now, after decades of struggle on tough corners, city officials are planning to significantly reduce the number of neighborhood liquor stores—the vast majority of which are owned by Korean-Americans. In a sense, Park says, KAGRO members “feel under attack again.”

Among the first things KAGRO did 18 years ago was start a scholarship program for local students. Since then, the association has awarded about $300,000, via annual grants to students in the neighborhoods where KAGRO-member stores are located, as well as to high-school and college-age children of store owners. Two police officers are also annually awarded “appreciation” honors at a ceremony at the Greenmount Senior Center.

The scholarships, as well as different community events and outreach forums, Park says, helped defuse tensions over time. “We tried to go around and get questions from the community, we tried to listen and get the community’s perspective as well as the merchants,” Park says. There were also meetings with former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke’s Korean liaison and municipal departments, and later with the O’Malley and Dixon administrations. By 2004, the Maryland Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights had produced a report—years in the making—that found that, while problems persisted between the African-American and Korean-American store owners, “some merchants enjoy friendly relationships in the neighborhoods where their stores are located . . . ” The report, however, also found that “city agencies can do more” to provide services without bias. Not that there wasn’t work needed on the store owners’ side.

“There are cultural differences between the West and East,” says Jin Wook Kang, a restaurant owner and lower Charles Village liquor-store operator. “In our home country, making eye contact is viewed as disrespectful in certain relationships, for example, between a student and a teacher; with a police officer or government official. We listen, but we look down. In our home country, we put change on the counter and push it toward a customer—it’s considered more polite than touching someone’s hand. But here, someone would tell police, ‘They’re rude, they put the change on the counter and push it toward you.’ The opposite was true. It was a misunderstanding. But things have improved a great deal.”

Jay Park arrived in Baltimore as a 17-year-old in 1973, at the start of a Korean boom following the 1965 Immigration Act, which abolished nation-based immigration laws giving Europeans preference. Ninety-five percent of Korean-Americans consist of post-1965 immigrants and their children. In the Baltimore region, the Korean-American community has grown from 2,000, Park estimates, when his family arrived, to 60,000.

“My father dreamed of a better life, a better life for his family—the land of opportunity—and he applied for immigration,” says Park, a fit and young-looking 57, casually dressed in a maroon golf shirt tucked into gray slacks at KAGRO’s office at North and Maryland Avenues. He speaks in accented but perfect English, smiling as he recalls his family’s early struggles to acclimate and make ends meet in their third-floor Patterson Park apartment. “Immigration was open to ‘skilled labor’ immigrants and he was an auto mechanic. He brought the whole family and only had $400. I think about it—there were seven of us—five siblings. Where does anybody get that kind of courage?” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t think I could’ve done it.”

His father eventually landed a Sparrows Point union job, where he punched a clock for 15 years. Park graduated from Towson in 1980 with a business degree, and, after a series of entry-level retail jobs, including door-to-door sales, he decided to strike out on his own. It was not just a desire to be self-employed; it was almost a necessity, he says.

“All of us have a family . . . counting on us, and this is the one thing we know.”

“First-generation Korean-Americans, we don’t have a lot resources when we arrive,” Park says. “People may have a lot of education in Korea, but they don’t know anyone and might have limited language skills. So, people pull resources together. We pull our own funding together, sometimes through a gye—a fund community members contribute to each month and then have access to. That’s how a lot of Korean-American merchants start—even today—though less than before.”

Michelle Ha, current KAGRO president, has been here since 1980 and lives above her East Biddle Street liquor store, which she’s owned for 15 years—not far from where Park’s family first settled. She throws an annual spaghetti block party, collects school supplies for neighborhood kids, and gives away Thanksgiving meals. “I love doing those things,” Ha says. A community council member, she works closely with Eastern District police—she has the commander’s cell-phone number—and officers know her by name. She also puts together an annual summer Day of Hope festival at Bocek Park, which includes children’s activities and rides.

“She’s a fixture in that community,” says Lt. Col. Melvin T. Russell, commander of the department’s community partnership division. “When I need help, she is one of the first people I call. She serves as a go-between with the small businesses [and police], and I know she provides holiday meals for hundreds of people. The city needs more people like her.”

Ha, however, is concerned about her future. Baltimore may need committed activists like Ha, but city officials don’t want the kind of business she owns in residential communities anymore. Part of the city’s massive rezoning effort entails scaling back the number of liquor licenses. Proportionally, the rollback will hit the Korean-American community, which owns the majority of corner “Class A” liquor stores, hardest.

Currently, there are 1,330 liquor licenses in the city. About 300 are “Class A” licenses, of which 128 are slated for cuttng. Thomas Stosur, Baltimore City’s director of planning, notes studies showing a correlation between crime, violence, poor public-health outcomes, and the number of liquor stores in densely populated residential areas. He adds that the last time the city underwent a rezoning overhaul was in 1971 when the 128 current liquor licenses the city wants to remove were “grandfathered” in. “We refer to them as ‘non-conforming’ because, under current law, they wouldn’t qualify for a liquor license because they are in a residential area,” Stosur says. “That’s where that number comes from.”

Stosur adds that many “Class BD-7” licenses (bars that do a majority carryout business) will be affected as well and are not typically Korean-American owned. In both cases, he says, the city intends to assist storeowners in retooling their business, if possible, so they can remain. Owners may sell their licenses, though that won’t be easy, Stosur admits.

Councilman Nick Mosby, who successfully sponsored a bill last year to stop liquor-store sales of candy, soda, and snacks to minors, says the effort to remove liquor stores from residential streets is overdue. “At the end of the day, this is an opportunity to build healthier communities,” he says. “Our juveniles grow up surrounded by liquor stores to a point where it becomes normalized. I ask people, ‘Where do you live? Would you put up with it on your block?'” Mosby acknowledges many owners have developed good neighborhood relationships, but says rezoning liquor stores out of residential areas and away from city schools is just common sense. Mosby expects the proposed rezoning to come before the City Council this fall—hearings last spring were emotional and contentious with KAGRO members voicing opposition—with a vote next spring. Owners “will have had 3 to 4 years to make necessary adjustments,”he says.

Still, Park, Ha, and KAGRO members feel they were excluded from the rezoning discussions. Park points out that while many businesses fled in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, the Korean-American business owners stayed. Many in the Korean-American community did move their residences to Baltimore and Howard Counties, but still worked with city officials to reduce crime and improve neighborhoods where they owned businesses. Station North, where KAGRO’s office is located, never quite became “Korea-town,” as Park puts it, but remains the center of the city’s Korean community and includes popular restaurants that date back to the 1980s. Those restaurants and the Korean community helped keep Station North viable before its Arts & Entertainment District designation and recent boom. “Now,” says Park, “they don’t need us anymore, and it’s goodbye.”

Of course, most of Park’s children, like other store owners’ kids born here, don’t have an interest in taking over the family business. Not after watching their mothers and fathers spend seven days a week, 12 hours a day, operating a corner store in a gritty section of town, often stuck at a cash register behind bullet-proof glass.

“Our kids don’t want that,” Park says. “They want professional jobs.”

Their parents, however, can’t afford to lose their stores, where their income and retirement remains tied up.

“All of us have a family and people counting on us, and this is the one thing we know how to do,” Ha says. “Once you start, you have so much money and time invested. How do you get the return that you have worked hard for?”

The opportunities open to high-achieving public high-school students seem boundless today. But in truth, these students have also earned it, not just doing the required homework and scoring good grades, but actively seeking out challenging course work, meaningful after-school activities, and enriching summer “vacation” programs. They build competitive robots, master musical instruments, intern at Johns Hopkins’s astronomy and bio-medical labs, perform on professional stages, and captain school athletic teams. Our intention with these brief profiles is not to stir up old high-school feelings of inadequacy (which we’re sure even these kids experience from time to time), but to offer a little hope. Our schools and today’s students often get knocked around in the media. These students, however—and there are many smart, hard-working others like them—provide a counter narrative: The future may not be in bad hands after all.

Dania Allgood, Junior
Western High School, Baltimore City

A member of the school’s renowned “RoboDoves” robotics team, Dania arrived at Western already speaking Arabic—her grandfather is Jordanian—and versed in Swahili, which she picked up in after-school programs. She’s studied French, Spanish, and Russian, as well, but what Dania also brought to Western, aside from an affinity for foreign languages, was “a huge interest” in math and science—her academic focus.

This summer, she spent five weeks at Frostburg State University’s Regional Math/Science Center camp, working on an environmental project involving water policy, livestock, and the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, ultimately producing a research paper. She carries a 3.5 GPA, and envisions studying computer science at an elite university, maybe even the University of Toyko.

But since joining the RoboDoves as a freshman, Dania has found something new that she loves: working with her hands. “I love using the different machines,” she says, “the hand saws, band saw, the table and power drills.” She’s competed twice with the squad at the robot-building VEX World Championships in Anaheim, CA. “I like that there’s no instruction manual with building the robot, that we have to come up with the idea of how to build it,” she says. “Are we going to do it this way, or that way? I like the imagination part.”

Dania admits, too, with a laugh, that she doesn’t mind beating the boys’ teams that throw sideways glances at the RoboDoves, knocking down stereotypes about what African-American, public-school girls can achieve in science. “They’d scout us at competitions and wouldn’t say or do anything, but when we win, they’d be shocked,” she says. “A lot of people know who we are now.”

Caroline desJardins-Park, Senior
Reservoir High School, Howard County

Winning school spelling bees in fourth, fifth, and seventh grades, Caroline attended the competitive Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth after eighth grade. It might be in her genes: Mom and dad are University of Maryland, Baltimore County computer science professors and lecturers, respectively; sister Heather majors in chemistry at Harvard; and uncle David earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.

But even in this group, where standing out academically is a challenge, to say the least, Caroline accomplished something unique—a perfect 2,400 on the SAT’s last year. Nearly 1.66 million students took the test last year in more than 170 countries, with 360 students, or just .022 percent, achieving a perfect score.

That said, Caroline hardly has her head in a book all day. She plays cello in Reservoir’s orchestra, sings with the school’s audition-only Madrigal Singers and the Peabody Children’s Chorus, and traveled to perform in France this summer. (She’s taken the highest-level French A.P. courses offered in Howard County and previously spent four weeks in a French immersion camp at Bard College.) She notes that she’s still not fluent—”I struggle at times to remember the conjugation, it’s tricky,” she says, chuckling. But she is always looking to pursue new experiences and challenges, enrolling in three A.P. classes this year. “In general, when I’m in the easier classes, it’s harder for me,” she says. “If I’m learning new stuff, I concentrate better.”

Credited with spurring her academic career is Howard County’s Accelerated Mathetmatics Program, led for 35 years by Eleanor “Lynn” Collins, who taught not only Caroline’s mother and her mom’s siblings in the 1970s, but her sister, too. Ultimately, she would like to attend Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. She’s ridden horses since the third grade, working at a stable part-time, and wants to continue to work with animals. “It’s what I love the most,” she says.

Gabriel Grell, Senior
Polytechnic High School, Baltimore City

For most high-school boys, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win over archrival City College high school or being selected to captain Poly’s traditionally powerful track team would serve as a competitive highlight. Not so for Gabriel. Last year, he was the only Maryland student invited to try out—and ultimately one of four named—to represent the U.S. at the 2012 Pan African Mathematics Olympiads in Tunisia.

Growing up in northeast’s Hamilton neighborhood and attending public schools “the whole way,” as he happily puts it, Gabriel’s been involved with the nonprofit Ingenuity Project since middle school. A joint effort of the school system, the Abell Foundation, and Baltimore’s science and mathematics community, the program provides students with a highly accelerated math and science curriculum. Out of this intensive workload, Gabriel qualified to take math classes at The Johns Hopkins University this year through JHU’s Future Scholars Program. That’s on top of his A.P. physics, computer science, and literature classes.

Gabriel has considered becoming a math major—his father is a math professor—but he’s now pondering a career in astronomy after studying deep space with Hopkins professor Henry Ferguson as part of the Ingenuity Project’s research practicum. “The galaxies are very interesting to look at, studying their parameters, micro-analyzing the details of the images from telescopes, including the Hubble,” Gabriel says. “I like math, but astronomy is more of my passion. I like looking out into space, there’s so much we haven’t seen yet, so much we have yet to learn. I’d love to make a contribution.”

Which isn’t to say, he doesn’t have more typical pressing high-school concerns. “I would like to win the City track title,” he says.

Sydney Johns, Senior
Western High School, Baltimore City

Like Dania, her RoboDove teammate, Sydney possesses an aptitude for foreign language, studying Spanish in middle school and then engaging in something a little more unusual—Russian—at Western. In fact, she’s won a national Russian writing award. A lively, high-energy young woman, Sydney’s interests range from student government to urban gardens built on vacant city land. While she’s taken courses like A.P. government and will pursue A.P. courses in human geography and literature this year, her academic concentration is math and science. For now.

She chose Western because it’s an all-girls institution—”It makes it easier to just be yourself”—but wasn’t aware of the RoboDoves program until after her freshman year began. “I didn’t even know they had a robotics program until I heard all this noise down the hallway,” Sydney says. “I heard the power tools and went running down to find out what they were doing.” She credits the RoboDoves’ mentors with improving her math skills and understanding of physics. More importantly, she adds, it has taught her to value teamwork. “I wasn’t someone who worked well with others before. I wanted to do everything myself. I learned you have to allow people to do the things they do well.”

A National Honor Society member, Sydney participated in The Johns Hopkins University’s intensive, four-week Engineering Innovation program for high-school students this summer, designed to encourage students to pursue careers in science and engineering. She will probably pursue engineering, but acknowledges being torn. “I like writing. I like reading memoirs and journals, like The Diary of Anne Frank. I like the humanities,” she says. “It’s hard to choose one over the other.”

Trés McMichael, Junior
George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology, Baltimore County

A vocalist who has performed with the Lyric Opera company, on stage at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, and at Camden Yards—singing the national anthem with 20 students—Trés says what he likes best about his high school is that the students know why they’re at Carver, a nationally recognized arts magnet school. “They’re here because they want to be, and they’re as equally into what they are doing as I am,” he says. “I find that inspiring.” He would know: He’s Carver’s Class of 2015 president and also Baltimore County Student Government Council vice president.

Trés has performed since attending Sudbrook Middle School, also a nationally recognized arts magnet school. (In fact, there’s a four-year-old YouTube clip of him covering John Legend’s “Ordinary People” at the school’s Spring Concert to huge applause.)

To improve his craft, Trés attended Opera Camp at the Lyric after his freshman and sophomore years. He’s sung with the Baltimore County High School Honor Chorus for two years, twice earning first chair. A baritone, Trés won a first-place Mid-Atlantic award in musical theater from the National Association of Teachers of Singers. He’s also won three NAACP ACT-SO gold medals for Baltimore County, two in contemporary vocals, one in classical. And, he was recently awarded an NEA award to study ballet.

He’d love to be the next John Legend or Ray Charles—”My style is more old-school than new-school”—but intends to attend Howard University to pursue a fine arts degree and master’s in education. He says he’s learned a lot through community service work, including a better understanding of the human condition, which informs his art. He likes teaching younger students to sing. He’ll take a shot at a performance career, however, he has a back-up plan. “I’d love to be on Broadway,” he says. “But I really love teaching other students to learn to sing. What I’d really like is to own a community arts center.”

Noah Scholl, Senior
River Hill High School, Howard County

By his own admission, Noah is not the world’s hardest-working student. “I’m definitely a bit lazy,” he says. Not obsessed with grades or awards, the 17-year-old does pursue, however, a balanced, thoughtful life. He spends free time playing music, including the piano—which he’s studied for 12 years and played with the McDaniel College Jazz Ensemble—and the alto sax. He reads a lot—”There are stacks and stacks of books under my bed,” he says—walks to school and plays Ultimate Frisbee at River Hill. “I’m not involved in a lot of school activities,” he says, though he does compete in fencing outside of school, participating in the USA National Championships.

His unweighted G.P.A. is a “3.5 or 3.6,” and he knows he could do better. He didn’t particularly like Spanish—”easily my worst subject,” he says—because of the labor-intensive nature of foreign language. And yet, in spite of his relatively laid-back approach—or perhaps, because of it—like desJardins-Park, Noah nailed a perfect SAT. He also scored a perfect 36 on his ACT to prove it wasn’t a fluke. “I’ve always been someone who tests well,” he says understatedly. Other than being a voracious reader, he didn’t do anything special to prepare for either exam, he says.

Not that he doesn’t pursue a rigorous academic schedule, or lacks ambition. Noah took a full load of A.P. classes as a junior—everything from English and psychology to chemistry and calculus—and will again this year. His favorite class has been A.P. anatomy and he’s interned at Johns Hopkins’s Oncology Department, learning about cancer research. He plans to pursue a career in bio-medical research, either at a place like the National Institutes of Health or a large university. “I feel like that’s where I can make a positive change in the world,” he says. “Not to mention, it’s just my favorite thing. I find it incredibly interesting.”

Less than a year and half ago, Andrew Alter Buerger was the publisher of the weekly Baltimore Jewish Times—toiling away at the helm of a family newspaper business his great grandfather, David Alter, began when Woodrow Wilson was in the White House back in 1919. At its zenith in the late 1990s, this mini-media empire included Jewish publications in six different cities and the local lifestyle magazine, Baltimore Style. All that came to an ignoble end in April of last year after a costly and losing legal battle with the paper’s printer, in combination with long-battered balance sheets, forced Alter Communications to be sold at bankruptcy auction. The owners of Washington Jewish Week bought the nearly century-old institution and now publish the Baltimore Jewish Times. “Basically, they took over on a Friday and I was gone Monday,” Buerger says.

Today, the 48-year-old is in an entirely different field—quite literally. It’s a sunny, late-spring afternoon and the erstwhile publisher is tromping through pastureland near Bird-in-Hand, PA. His family once prospered from the labors of editors and advertising reps, but he’s here to show a reporter the front-line workforce for his latest venture: contented cows.

Amish dairy farms serve as home to the two bovine herds supplying the grass-fed milk (later skimmed) used to make B’more Organic smoothies, a line of health drinks based on an Icelandic form of strained yogurt that Buerger and his wife, Jennifer, began bottling in 2010. Sales have grown four-fold every year since, with the $3.99 pint bottles now available at hundreds of outlets from New York to Virginia, including Whole Foods and Wegmans.

As Buerger gingerly dodges the cow pies dotting the greenery beneath his feet, he reflects back on his former life. “Let’s see, it’s a Wednesday—that was press day,” he says. “We’d be on deadline, proofing copy and checking ads. I don’t miss that.

“I’d rather be out here,” he adds after a pause, squinting into the distance where some 40 piebald cows are languidly munching grass.

Buerger jokes that as a newspaperman much of his work was “avoiding cow patties of a different sort.” But there were some troubling things he couldn’t side step: The economic downturn, the Internet’s ravaging of print-media revenue, and the waning interest in Jewish newspapers among younger Jews. Perhaps most damaging of all, a bruising three-year legal battle with the printing company that had inked the newspaper since the 1950s. Buerger pulled out of a contract with the paper’s longtime printers, family-owned H.G. Roebuck & Son, Inc., whose terms, he felt, were crippling a business already facing financial headwinds. There were multiple lawsuits, a Chapter 11 filing—and a war of words and lawyers that got personal.

Buerger always thought he would die, figuratively, in the publisher’s chair, as his father Charles Buerger had in 1996. It was his dad’s passing that first brought the younger Buerger home to the helm from where he’d been running one of the family’s papers in Vancouver, Canada.

“No one ever retired from that position,” Buerger says. No one had ever been booted out of it, either. But any anger or bitterness about the loss of the family’s vocation is all in the rear-view mirror, Buerger insists. This fourth-generation publisher’s transition to first-generation yogurt maker is unfolding as a joyful second act.

“I had a great run in the media business,” Buerger says. “But I love what I’m doing now. I love the product and the industry. It’s a passion. I’m excited to put my feet on the floor each morning because I know I’m helping people eat healthier with a lower impact on the environment.”

Back in Baltimore, B’More Organic’s global headquarters is an under-the-eaves office tucked into the third floor of the Buerger’s Roland Park Victorian house. Just one floor below are the bedrooms of 3-year-old twins Joss and Bronner, whom the Buergers adopted from Ethiopia in 2010. At nap time, one must tippy-toe around the office. It’s just as well that the company’s sole employee besides the Buergers—marketing manager Eric Chessler—spends most of his time out in the company Chevy Volt visiting merchants.

It’s always causal Friday at the home office, as Buerger has shed the suits and ties of the media world for polo shirts and jeans. And he’s one of those guys who looks like he can still fit into clothes from his college days, thanks to a rabid interest in healthy eating that goes back more than a decade. Adopting a diet of lean protein while nixing sugar and white flour helped him drop 20 pounds and tame spiking cholesterol levels.

“From the day I met him, Andy has always been looking for the perfect food,” Jennifer Buerger says. The pair believes they finally found it on a mountainside in Iceland four years ago, where they had gone to climb the country’s tallest peak, Mount Hvannadalshnjúkur. The trip was a fundraiser for Jodi’s Climb For Hope, a charity they launched in 2006 using mountain climbing as a means to raise money for breast cancer research, while honoring Andrew’s sister, Jodi, who had battled the disease for years before dying in 2009. (Today, the charity also raises money for multiple sclerosis.)

“You have to eat what the guides give you on the mountain, and they served this yogurt-like stuff,” Jennifer Buerger recalls. “I looked at Andy and said, ‘You’re not eating this—I have to share a tent with you!’”

(To clarify: Andrew Buerger is lactose intolerant, and without getting graphic, let’s just say a mountainside tent is perhaps the last place he’d want to experience the intestinal backlash that can occur from ingesting dairy.)

Still, with heaps of calories needed for a strenuous climb, he felt he had little choice but take a few spoonfuls. Turns out, nothing untoward happened. He ate still more the next day and, again, no gut protests. Their hosts told them it was skyr (pronounced “skeer”), a dairy product, technically a cheese, in its Old World form, dating to Viking days. It is similar to Greek yogurt, in that it is strained to concentrate protein, while having the added bonus that its probiotics consume most of the lactose, thus sparing Buerger’s digestive system.

On the plane ride home the pair decided to go into business importing the stuff—until they discovered someone had beaten them to the punch: It was already on the shelves at Whole Foods. They contented themselves with buying a case of it a week, which they usually tossed into a blender with fruit for a nutritious drink. “One day we just looked at each other and said, ‘This is crazy, why don’t we sell a skyr smoothie?’” Jennifer Buerger says.

They worked with a food scientist in the dairy department of the University of Vermont, Andrew’s undergrad alma mater, to come up with a recipe and three flavors: banana, banana mango, and vanilla. Each has at least 15 grams of protein per 8-ounce serving, with zero fat, zero added sugar, and only 120 calories. (Compared to the average cup of flavored yogurt, which, ounce for ounce, has about the same sugar as soda.)

When it came to sourcing the skim milk used to make the smoothies, they looked in Maryland and further north before settling on the Amish countryside. It seemed a natural fit. The Amish were organic before organic was cool. “They were very welcoming,” Buerger says. “I love the way their families farm without hurting the environment, and I wanted to support that.

“And I’m still talking to guys in beards, hats, and black pants,” he adds with a smile, a nod to the sartorial similarities between the Amish and Orthodox Jews.

The drink is made in Amish country as well, and a year ago they moved smoothie production to a second, larger Amish-run plant near Lancaster, PA. (Yes, it uses electricity and modern equipment.) The Buergers invested some $100,000 in a special milk separator required to make skyr. “There went the college fund.” Buerger jokes.

When Buerger was still in publishing, Jennifer ran the company during the day and served as its chief cheerleader. Today, Buerger does the lion’s share of the heavy lifting while she is back at her initial career as a psychotherapist. She puts it another way: “My job now is to pay the bills.” While B’More Organic is growing like gangbusters—they expect another four-fold increase in sales to 35,000 cases this year—it’s still a couple of years away from making money, which is pretty much the norm for such startups. The pair is encouraged by the rise of Greek yogurt, which came out of nowhere to become a multi-billion-dollar industry. And, a new espresso flavor is also in the offing. (They plan to donate a percentage of B’More Organic’s profits to Jodi’s Climb for Hope once the company goes into the black.)

“Not to sound arrogant, but it was really easy to get our products into stores,” Buerger says, noting that Whole Foods and Wegmans took to the healthy, green products right away. “But now you have to go to each store at least once a month, if not more, and pass out samples because if they don’t sell the product, it gets kicked out.”

With his burgeoning business, young children, and not-infrequent trips to Lancaster to talk with his bearded, buggy-driving dairy associates, does Andrew Buerger ever pause to read the Baltimore Jewish Times?

“You know, I don’t even look at it—for a number of reasons,” he says. “I’ve moved on.”

In the garage beneath the downtown law offices of Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, Larry Gibson lifts a piece of luggage loaded with hardcover copies of his award-winning book, Young Thurgood, from his trunk. He intends to wheel the heavy bag up Charles Street to the city courthouse for a book signing with local bar association members. But first, the 71-year-old Gibson chats with a parking attendant, who wants the attorney to present his book to his church.

“I’m saving the last day in June for you,” says Gibson, nodding. “Let’s get it confirmed. The calendar’s filling up.”

By his count, Gibson has done 44 signings since the book’s release last December. Walking north past the Hotel Monaco, he stops and notes that this is the old headquarters of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad—the company name still engraved over the archway—for which the future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and his father once worked as dining-car waiters.

Weaving through traffic, Gibson—without a hint of resentment—recalls his own experiences growing up in segregated Baltimore, such as getting kicked out of a recreation center with his older brother and cousin. “We were leading both the Ping-Pong and pool tournaments,” he says, laughing. “That’s what made me mad.” He talks about setting pins at Stoneleigh’s duckpin lanes—“where I wasn’t allowed to roll a ball”—and working on a bakery truck as a teenager. “We made deliveries to places, like Highlandtown, that I didn’t know existed, and I thought I knew every neighborhood in Baltimore,” Gibson says, with another laugh. “We also delivered different kinds of bread, like pumpernickel, that I’d never seen.

“Before I went to work in the Carter Administration, for a background check, they asked for all my addresses, and I realized we moved every 18 months,” he continues. “Of course, I’d only known all the black neighborhoods.”

In 1956, however—two years after Marshall, a Baltimore native, won the landmark Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision—Gibson entered City College high school. Voted the storied institution’s first African-American class officer, he moved on to Howard University, becoming a student civil-rights leader, motivated, he says, by a basic desire to “fully participate” in life. After Columbia Law School, he was the first “negro,” as the Baltimore News-American reported, appointed to clerk for a federal judge in Maryland in 1967.

And then Gibson clerked for Venable, Baetjer & Howard, one of the state’s two biggest law firms—his goal at the time to buy his parents, a janitor and a cook, a house. He recalls that period now, before his presentation in the courthouse’s Barr Library, where he spent long hours researching cases as a Venable clerk. “I had every intention of working for Venable; there was an expectation that I would. But then Martin Luther King was shot and I’m thinking, ‘Why am I going to work for the establishment?’” Gibson says. “And I changed my mind.”

“There was a need to open the door in local politics, and that’s what he did,” says Schmoke. “Larry was a street fighter.”

With Baltimore convulsed in riots following King’s assassination, Gibson instead decided to join the city’s top black law firm, Brown, Allen, Watts, Murphy & Russell, and immediately set out to elect the first black leaders—including two of those partners listed above—to citywide offices. Quickly developing a reputation as a high-energy, no-holds-barred, grassroots organizer, Gibson served as campaign manager for Joseph Howard, who became the first black judge on the Baltimore City Supreme Bench and the first African-American to win a citywide seat in the fall of 1968—just seven months after King’s death. In the next election cycle, Gibson directed the campaigns of Milton Allen, the first African-American elected Baltimore State’s Attorney—and the first to hold a chief prosecutor’s position in a major U.S. city—and William Murphy, who won a Municipal Court judgeship. Paul Chester, whose campaign Gibson also directed, became the first African-American circuit-court clerk the same year, 1970.

Finally, the young organizer and his law firm supported Parren Mitchell, who became the first African-American from Maryland elected to Congress in 1970. Mitchell, who had lost in his 1968 bid, won by 38 votes and would serve eight terms. In two years, the color of Baltimore’s political landscape had begun a transformation.

“I thought it was important for African-Americans to gain full participation—beyond voting—in the political process,” says Gibson of those groundbreaking campaign efforts. “Part of that meant removing barriers to holding political office.”

Later, Gibson became best known locally for directing the two successful State’s Attorney races and three successful mayoral campaigns of Kurt Schmoke, the first African-American elected to Baltimore’s highest office.

“There was a need to open the door in local politics, and that’s what he did,” says Schmoke, who stepped down last year after a decade as dean of Howard University’s School of Law. “Larry was the street fighter, very much engaged in all of the campaigns, an aggressive campaigner on the retail level. He started with judgeships, with citywide races, then Congress, and up from there.”

But for as much as Gibson relished the battle of campaigning, he never had an interest in governing himself. If nothing else, his interests always ran too wide to focus on a single all-consuming job like holding public office. Actually, he admits even trying to discourage Schmoke from running for office initially. “People would accuse me of pulling the strings in the background, but once the election was over—I was out of it,” Gibson says. Half the time, he adds, perhaps only half-joking, he didn’t even know the names of everyone in Schmoke’s cabinet.

A former high-school hurdler who wore the black-rimmed glasses in style in the 1960s, Gibson cut a lean, more hard-edged figure as a young man. Today, in silver frames, with a grandfather’s receding hairline, he seems perfectly comfortable in his elder-statesman-like role. He admits to a natural mellowing—“maturing” in his words—over the years. “I’ve gained wisdom, I understand some things better than I used to,” Gibson says. “Everything is not black or white anymore. There are more shades of gray.”

Reminded that he was often described as brash in the media and worse by political foes—former Gov. William Donald Schaefer once was quoted calling him a racist (a comment which still draws the ire of longtime best friend and attorney Ron Shapiro)—Gibson shakes his head and smiles. Then, however, the old intensity flashes as he looks over his glasses to make eye contact and his point. “I was in Baltimore during the riots and my friends and I didn’t take that track,” he says. “We went about changing things through the political and legal system.”

“I was upset because I had to pay for a lunch I didn’t want, and I knew they hadn’t really integrated. I called that my Sit-in Salad.”

But for all his accomplishments, city politics has been just one aspect of Gibson’s varied career, which includes practicing law as well as nearly 40 years teaching at the University of Maryland School of Law—after becoming the first black law professor at the University of Virginia. (“Charlottesville was nice, but too quiet,” he says. “My wife and I missed the excitement, the noise, and everything going on in the city.) Former students include Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Gov. Martin O’Malley, and U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, among others.

A few more things Gibson has done: He served six years on the City Board of School Commissioners after former Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro III appointed him to the board at 26. He successfully defended a Baltimore Black Panther Party member on kidnap and murder charges and fought high-profile housing discrimination cases with Shapiro in the 1970s. He served in the U.S. Justice Department as associate deputy attorney general. He helped get the University of Maryland law library named after Marshall and was the principal advocate behind renaming BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport. A lifelong photographer, Gibson has curated exhibitions around Maryland’s first black attorneys, civil rights, and Marshall’s career. Later, he served as a campaign advisor to the presidents of Liberia and Madagascar. He even represented the professional baseball umpire’s union for seven years.

Currently vice chairman of the city’s Historical and Architectural Preservation committee, Gibson remains involved with the effort to preserve the former Read’s Drug Store building on Howard Street, where then-Morgan College students staged some of the earliest Civil Rights-era sit-ins. For his part, Gibson recalls staging a sit-in as a 19-year-old Howard student at the old Oriole cafeteria on York Road in the fall of 1961. Except, in order to avert any disruption or media attention, the cafeteria unexpectedly decided to integrate—for a day. “I had grabbed a meal that I didn’t even like, baked fish—the fish I’d always had was fried—and a salad with carrots, raisins, and mayonnaise. Then, they rang me up, and I didn’t have any money. I had to borrow money to pay for it.

Now, he’s added historian and author to his resume, chronicling Marshall’s formative years in Baltimore and the environment that shaped the first black Supreme Court justice. In the book, Gibson brings to light interviews he taped with Marshall’s relatives and classmates in the 1980s—going so far as to document his grades at Baltimore’s “Colored High School” and college debating career—as well as his early, critical civil-rights battles in the state.

“I thought it was a great book and called Larry to tell him so,” says Shale Stiller, partner at DLA Piper and former president, CEO, and chairman of The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, who said he bought about 75 copies of the book to give away. “It’s a poignant and direct account of what it was like for African-Americans to live in Maryland in the 30 years after the turn of the century.”

In a sense, in writing about Marshall’s life and early career in Baltimore, Gibson has come full circle.

On July 1, 1975, at 11 p.m., Gibson and another young lawyer drove to Marshall’s Falls Church, VA, home to ask the Justice to sign an emergency order blocking the firing of City Schools Superintendent Roland Patterson.

“We started out nervous, but we kept telling each other;that the worst that could happen was Marshall would not let us in or he would refuse to sign the order,” Gibson says. “But, we had difficulty finding Marshall’s neighborhood and house. We got lost several times. As we wandered around, frustration became the dominant sentiment . . . and [we] considered going back to Baltimore. The only feeling I remember as we knocked on the door was hoping that we were at the right house.”

The Justice, in his bathrobe, invited the attorneys inside.

“It took him about 10-15 minutes to take care of the paperwork, and he said, ‘You know [Chief Justice] Burger is going to knock this down tomorrow,’” recounts Gibson. “But the Patterson thing was political, and he knew we were trying to get a hit in the media, which we did, and buy time. After that, we talked about Baltimore until 2 a.m. He wanted to know about certain neighborhoods, if this building or that building was still standing. He was completely different than the press accounts of him I’d read that referred to him as cantankerous—and that he didn’t like Baltimore.”

Thurgood Marshall Jr. appreciates that Gibson’s book corrects the perception that his father held hard feelings regarding his hometown. A Washington lawyer and former Clinton Administration official, he has been on friendly terms with Gibson for two decades and even remembers that first late night when the young Baltimore attorney knocked on his family’s front door. “My father had nothing but affection for Baltimore,” he says. “He experienced some things there he didn’t like, but that was because of the times in which he lived, not particularly tied to the city.”

“There are so many formative moments that professor Gibson brings out that affected my father’s life,” Marshall says. “It’s amazing how much I learned about my father and my relatives—some of whom I only knew by their first name or a nickname. I’m flabbergasted at times by his attention to detail.”

“. . . that the worst that could happen was Marshall would not let us in or he would refuse to sign the order.”

Gibson’s curiosity about Marshall and his early life and career was piqued further after a brief meeting at the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse dedication on Calvert Street in 1985. Marshall was chatting with Mitchell’s widow, civil-rights activist Juanita Jackson Mitchell, when Gibson approached and asked a nearby bystander to take a picture of him with the Supreme Court Justice. It was the last time that he’d see Marshall in person. The bystander struggled with his camera for a few moments, prompting Marshall to lean toward Gibson and quip, “So, what am I supposed to do, kiss you?”

“I never got over that first encounter in July 1975,” Gibson says. “The man whom many legal historians consider the most important American lawyer of the 20th century had spent more than two hours talking with two young lawyers from Baltimore who showed up at his front door late at night. I guess, that’s when I became a Thurgood Marshall addict. I wanted to learn more about him.”

Although he didn’t have a book in mind then, Gibson set about interviewing Marshall’s relatives and classmates—while they were still around—over the next few years. It took another 25-plus years before Gibson would complete his biography, at the urging of Karen Rothenberg along the way, another former University of Maryland law-school dean, who, Gibson jokes, “got tired of hearing me complain that somebody should set the record straight and write this book.”

Schmoke says the link between Gibson and Marshall goes deeper than the biography (which is dedicated to Gibson’s wife, Diana, and Marshall’s wife, Cecilia). It’s a shared commitment to equality and progress, he says, one that Marshall’s law-school dean at Howard—whom Gibson highlights in the book—tried to instill in his students.

“Larry would fit in the mold of Charles Hamilton Houston, who was Thurgood Marshall’s mentor,” says Schmoke. “Houston said lawyers can be either social engineers or they can be parasites on society, and he was always encouraging lawyers to be social engineers—advancing their clients’ cases, of course—but always working for positive social change.

“Anybody can be a lawyer,” Schmoke says. “Larry Gibson is an example of a lawyer as social engineer.”

Appraised of Schmoke’s words, Gibson, researching a potential follow-up book on Marshall, pauses for a moment. “That’s stated pretty strongly, the line about ‘parasites on society.’ That’s not language I’d use. But when I went to law school, we were only graduating two black lawyers in the state a year. It wasn’t like you had a choice, you had to sit on boards, become a trustee or chairman of this organization or that—you had to be a leader. There wasn’t the luxury of ‘just’ being a lawyer.

“And yes, I think we moved the ball forward. I know we did. But it wasn’t like any of the things I did ever felt like a sacrifice,” adds Gibson. “I’ve loved every minute of it.”

There are tons of fireworks going off this Fourth of July, so here are our picks for the best off-the-beaten-path views.

Tide Point Waterfront Park
Locust Point
With fewer crowds than atop Federal Hill or at the Inner Harbor, Tide Point’s waterfront promenade—where Hull Street meets the water and Under Armour has taken over—feels like a boardwalk right in the middle of the city.

Luskin’s Hill
Towson
Though the original Luskin’s furniture store closed nearly 20 years ago, they just opened a new one last year. But the 120-foot incline off of Cromwell Bridge Road remains one of the best places to see the Loch Raven fireworks.

Tiki Barge
Inner Harbor
This floating peninsula of a bar will be a great place to catch the downtown show. We recommend hanging out at the upstairs bar (order a margarita, if that’s your thing) where there is no cover and flawless views of the Harbor.

UMBC Soccer Field
Catonsville
Catonsville puts on a fantastic fireworks show, which most people watch from the high school. But UMBC’s soccer field is a nice alternative. There was a teeny incident last year with the sprinklers, but maintenance crews promise they’ll remember to turn them off.

Wit & Wisdom
Harbor East
Wit & Wisdom’s new outdoor patio and bar space—that they just opened in the spring—is one of the prime viewing locations in town. Expect casual fare like BBQ ribs, fried chicken, grilled brats, and sangria.

So where are you from?

I am from Baltimore City, on the Westside of the city, Edmondson Village.

And the fact that you are from Baltimore is unusual, right?
There’s never been a Miss Maryland from Baltimore City. They’re always from PG County and Montgomery County. They’re never from the inner city. So I’m really excited about that.

Whooo! Baltimore pride!
Yeah, exactly.

Is there anything about your talent or platform that relates to Baltimore?
Kinda, sorta. We don’t have a talent in my system but we do have a platform. Each of us has to pick a platform that’s special to us, and we have to promote it throughout the year. My platform is youth mentoring with a focus on inner-city youth. And the reason that I chose that is because I am a product of the inner city myself, and I understand how easy it is to fall victim to the negative situations around us. So, what I’m trying to do is make the young people aware of that and try to avoid it be all means.

So how did you avoid that growing up?
I pretty much had good people in my life to keep my on the right path. I went to a really great high school [City College] and the faculty really cared about us. And even when I went up to college, I was able to be around different people. Marymount [University in Arlington, VA] is so diverse, therefore I learned so many different things from all those different people, and that’s pretty much how I got into pageantry. I was volunteering and I saw one of the titleholders and what she was doing it . . . it meant something to me. I thought, ‘This is something I want to do.’ And I know how the people in my city have never seen it. We don’t see too many Miss Marylands in Baltimore City doing anything in our community but this is something I could do to help them. So that’s pretty much what I’m trying to do.

You were crowned in February. When’s the Miss United States Pageant?
It’s July 4-7 in Washington, D.C.

How are you prepping?
My main focus is a lot of physical training. You have to be really physically fit when you’re on stage considering we compete in interview, swimsuit, evening gown, and on stage questions. So my biggest thing right now is being physically fit so I’ll look my best on stage in swimsuit, as well as evening gown. So, basically, I’m in the gym everyday. I changed my eating habits completely—and that’s one thing I love about pageantry—it really taught me to have a healthy lifestyle as far as my eating habits. I’m completely healthy now instead of just eating burgers every single day. And then I’m doing a lot of training with my on stage question and interviewing skills. That’s a really big thing because if you make Top 5 then you have to compete in on stage question, you never know what they’re going to ask you, so it’s good to always be on your toes.

How similar is backstage pageant life to Miss Congeniality?
The crazy thing is, the Miss United States system is the same pageant that was in Miss Congeniality, the movie. So that’s a really cool question. It’s pretty much the same. I mean, some of the girls can get pretty catty and stuff like that, but those are the types of girls who tend to not do so well in the pageant because, honestly, we all become friends. Some of my really good friends who I talk to every single day are girls that I met when I started competing. You have your sour apples in the bunch but they tend to not do as well. We get a lot of good friendships out of it. It’s fun. A lot of stuff can go wrong the day of the pageant but you just gotta keep it moving. It’s a lot fun.

But you aren’t, like, investigating crime backstage or anything?
[Laughs] No! That would be cool, but no.

So if you win the Miss United States title, what happens then?
Then I would be Miss United States for a whole year from this July to next July. I’ll be working with Relay for Life in conjunction with the American Cancer Society and going around the country to different states raising funds, raising awareness for the organization, and promoting my platform which is youth mentoring. My focus will be the inner city because it’s tough in the city. People in the inner city get ignored. I definitely don’t want to do that. I want to put my focus on that.

So what are you going to do once the pageant is over and you can relax?
Oh my god, I want to go to Dominos or Pizza Hut and I’m gonna get me a large pepperoni pizza, and I’m not going to share with anyone. I miss pizza so much! That’s one of the things that I had to give up that, whenever I see it, it like hurts my heart. [Laughs]

Your family is still in Baltimore. Are they supportive of your pageantry?
The funny thing is my family wasn’t the most supportive when it came to pageantry. I first started competing when I had just turned 21. I did Miss Maryland USA in 2011 and it was new to them. They just saw the girls on TV but they never really knew anyone from Baltimore City who would do it and do well. So, you know, they weren’t the most supportive. I had to do everything on my own. I didn’t really do that well that year. I only got best interview. I didn’t place at all. So then, considering I went to school out in Arlington and lived in D.C., I competed for Miss District of Columbia USA this past December and I actually got second runner up. So that kind of turned them around a little bit. They said, ‘Oh! She’s actually doing pretty well. Maybe this is her calling. Maybe this is something for her.’ It got a little bit better, as far as support level. And then when I got out of college and came back home with my mom, that’s when I did Miss Maryland United States in February and I won. So now that I won, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this is awesome! She’s competing in a national beauty pageant’ My mom, she tells everyone immediately. So it’s really cool. They pretty much brag about it now, but it took me to do some convincing to them to really get them on the bandwagon and to show them it is something that I definitely can be successful in, and it’s very attainable. That’s pretty much what got them to start supporting me.

Were they just skeptical about the whole world of it?
Well, my mom and my aunt, they thought it was a waste of money. My aunt is always the one saying, ‘You shouldn’t just be judged on your outer beauty.’ And I had to keep telling her you’re not just judging on outer beauty. I mean, yeah, it’s a beauty pageant but honestly, your job starts the day after your crowned. We are out in the community do things. We’re not just taking pictures and waving all the time. You’re actually serving your community, which she didn’t really understand. Now that my aunt sees that, she’s super like, ‘I’m so proud of you, you’re doing the right thing.’

His appearance on stage last fall at Centennial High School’s auditorium, with friends Brock Yetso and Lance Armstrong in tow, should’ve been a simple, happy homecoming for Doug Ulman. The 36-year-old CEO of the Livestrong Foundation had won three state soccer championships here with Yetso, never losing a game. He’d gone on to play at Brown University before receiving a cancer diagnosis just prior to his sophomore year and then, remarkably, survived two more bouts of cancer in school while also launching the Baltimore-based Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults. Instead, however, a cloud hung over the “Lance Unplugged” event in the Centennial auditorium. Yetso, hosting the forum with Armstrong and Ulman, noted more than 50 cancer survivors were signed up for the Half Full Triathlon in Ellicott City the next day—which Armstrong had entered at the last minute. “Why this race?” Yetso asked the Tour de France legend. “You could do any race in the world.”

Armstrong responded with an awkward smile and a glance toward the audience—acknowledging the elephant in the room. “Well, that’s technically not true.”

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) had just handed Armstrong a lifetime competition ban after he announced he’d no longer contest the organization’s blood-doping charges. In truth, he came to Howard County because race organizers relinquished their USA Triathlon sanction just for him—in hopes his participation would raise more money for its charity, the Ulman Cancer Fund. The $50 Lance Unplugged tickets sold well, and auctioning off a Trek bike and jersey signed by Armstrong raised another $7,500. Still, there was a sense the other shoe was about to drop for Armstrong. Which it did.

Three days later, the USADA published its final report—more than a thousand pages of evidence and testimony from more than two dozen people, including 15 cyclists—documenting payments, e-mails, and test results proving “the use, possession and distribution of performance-enhancing drugs by Lance Armstrong.” Two weeks after his Centennial High appearance, Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.

Ulman admits today he’d held private doubts about the veracity of Armstrong’s denials for some time. But it wasn’t until he read the USADA report that he was forced to acknowledge his good friend—Ulman got married in Armstrong’s Austin, TX, backyard—had lied to him for years. “There’s not one thing in particular that I remember, except that it was a sad occasion,” Ulman says of Armstrong’s apology to him over dinner before his infamous confession with Oprah in January. “It was definitely emotional.”

Of course, Ulman’s broader concern was the hit Armstrong’s cancer foundation—whose mission had become his own life’s work—would take in the fallout around the disgraced cyclist. Suddenly, the nonprofit’s survival was being questioned.

“There is no playbook for dealing with this sort of thing,” Ulman says.

A compelling public speaker with his own powerful story, Ulman is now assuming what had been Armstrong’s public role. Among high-profile media appearances, he appeared on Today shortly after the USADA report came to light. In March, he did a Q & A with Time magazine.

He also has had to assume a greater role in motivating Livestrong staff and volunteers, admitting morale at Livestrong headquarters suffered a blow as the bottom fell out of the founder’s story.

Sitting in his office, a yellow Livestrong bracelet still around his wrist, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman recalled the summer afternoon 17 years ago that led to his younger brother’s initial cancer diagnosis. “We were running together through Dorsey’s Search [a Columbia neighborhood] and he kept coming back to check on me—because he was faster and in a lot better shape,” says Ken Ulman, a former Centennial point guard, but by then no longer a competitive athlete like his brother, who was preparing for his second season in the Brown midfield.

“He had asthma, but it had always been manageable. This time, though, he couldn’t get his breathing under control and went to Howard County General. They took a chest X-ray, almost as precaution, and that’s when it showed up.”

The X-ray revealed a tumor attacking rib cartilage in the then 19 year old. Ultimately, he underwent surgery for bone cancer, but was far from in the clear from cancer, and, over the next year, Ulman was diagnosed and treated twice for malignant melanoma. Determined to play soccer again, he returned to help Brown to three Ivy League Championships in four years. At the same time, he was turning his attention to a new challenge.

In college, Ulman, who could pass for Armstrong’s younger brother and possesses a similar blue-eyed intensity—albeit matched with earnestness rather than arrogance—studied American history and education. He had every intention of becoming a social studies teacher and soccer coach. But while in school, with assistance from his family, particularly his mother, long active in the Howard County community, he founded the nonprofit Ulman Cancer Fund. It provides support, education, and resources to young adults diagnosed with cancer, including help navigating the health-care system.

“Cancer may leave your body, but it never leaves you,” says Ulman, who discovered few informational sources while receiving treatment. “You get a cold or the flu and you wonder if you are okay. I still go to the dermatologist regularly for a scan, and the week leading up to that, I can experience a little anxiety.”

Early on, Ken Ulman says, his parents, Diana and Louis Ulman, instilled the importance of making a difference in the lives of others—volunteering the brothers at a local homeless shelter—as well as giving them the optimism and confidence that they could be leaders and problem solvers. (Diana and Louis Ulman, it should be noted, have overcome their own bouts with cancer.) Ken Ulman believes his always-driven brother—who was also Howard County Student Government Association president in high school—“is drawing on those qualities now” as he leads Livestrong through the public-relations crisis related to its founder.

Yetso, who has known Ulman since they were 10, says his pal’s resiliency was apparent on the soccer field long before his battles with cancer. “It was almost like he enjoyed being down 1-0 in a game,” Yetso says. “He is just someone who always responded to a challenge. He would’ve been a great social studies teacher and a coach that won state championships in soccer if he’d stayed on that track. He definitely became more focused [after cancer]—that experience changed him—but at the same time, he’s always been that way.”

As a junior at Brown, Ulman received an unexpected e-mail from Armstrong—who had not yet won his first Tour de France, but had learned of the young soccer player’s struggle with cancer. “I feel as if we are the lucky ones. Nobody can really have the perspective and the focus of a cancer survivor,” Armstrong wrote. “If there is anything I can do to help your cause, please let me know. Otherwise, look after yourself and take care.”

If there’s any doubt about Ulman’s affinity for a challenge, he did a 100-mile Himalyan ultra-marathon several years ago.

Staying in touch via e-mail for two years, Ulman eventually ventured to Texas to meet Armstrong in person during a charity ride.

Armstrong, of course, despite vigorously defending himself (to say the least) against doping allegations for the past decade, has always been the face of his cancer foundation. Raising millions for his cancer nonprofit may have enabled him, in terms of good will, to deflect negative publicity from the persistent doping allegations—as some have suggested. But it’s hard to question Livestrong’s efforts, which do not fund cancer cure research, but aim “to inspire and empower” cancer patients and their families, guiding individuals through the cancer experience and encouraging them to live an active life as a survivor.

Ulman, named president and CEO in 2007, helped develop Livestrong into one of the world’s best-known philanthropic organizations—one that took in $48.5 million in 2012. Not only does Livestrong have a legion of cancer-survivor supporters, including 116,000 donors worldwide last year, it has earned a four-star rating—the highest—from Charity Navigator, an independent charity evaluator.

But in the wake of the doping revelations, he quickly had to make a number of moves to separate the organization’s mission and work from its association with Armstrong. The first, Ulman says, was a commitment to “over communicate” both externally and internally. “We’ve probably had 50 meetings with our staff,” says Ulman, “some an hour, others five minutes.”

Most noticeably, three weeks after Armstrong lost his titles, the Lance Armstrong Foundation dropped the name of the disgraced cyclist from its title, officially changing its name to Livestrong.

Two weeks later, after discussing the issue with Ulman, Armstrong resigned from the board.

Still, he can’t—and probably no one can—replace Armstrong as a celebrity rainmaker. Instead, according to Meg Algren, associate professor of communications at Towson University, the key to Livestrong’s survival must be a renewed focus on its “product”—serving those with cancer diagnoses and cancer survivors.

Marian Stern, a philanthropy consultant and head of Projects in Philanthropy, says Ulman must manage a delicate balance in distancing Livestrong from Armstrong, but believes that Livestrong can survive. She also says Livestrong’s ability to thrive post-Armstrong will reveal more about how the organization was built, in terms of strength and integrity, than any single response to the cyclist’s ongoing crisis. (In April, the U.S. Department of Justice joined a lawsuit alleging fraud related to Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service sponsorship.)

Ulman already knows that the organization will suffer in terms of its fundraising. He says it has reduced its internal budget for this year by 11 percent, but adds that major grant funders like Nike and Oakley remain on board. To Algren’s point, Ulman is also quick to add that Livestrong is “doubling down” on its mission in 2013, planning to spend more this year—it maintains a $38 million endowment—on its various programs than last.

“We are going to use this opportunity to get the word out about who we are,” he says.

Ulman, who reportedly earned $354,150 in 2011, says he never considered cutting ties with Livestrong. “I feel such a responsibility to the organization and our mission,” he says, remaining grateful to Armstrong in many ways. “Without him and the intensity of his efforts, we wouldn’t have been able help the hundreds of thousands of people that we have.”

In the end, Ulman says, accepting his good friend Armstrong’s mistakes—however gross, including going after former teammates—is akin to dealing with the bad behavior of a family member. “You can be disappointed, frustrated, but you don’t cast a family member or friend aside and overlook what they’ve meant to you and the good things they’ve done.

“It’s ironic,” Ulman says. “We are in the business of survivorship. And all of the tools that we use to help people navigate cancer—now we have to apply those same principles to the organization.”

UPDATE (5/30/13): Nike announced that the company will stop production of its Livestrong line of exercise apparel and gear at the end of this year, terminating a licensing agreement that helped raise $100 million for the cancer foundation, according to Reuters and numerous media outlets. Ron Cassie is following the story here.

At first glance, the works of art in Kay Redfield Jamison’s sparsely decorated office don’t seem to have much in common. There’s a charcoal drawing of composer Gustav Mahler; a delicate print of Romantic poet Lord Byron; a black-and-white photograph of one of Jamison’s many muses, “confessional” poet Robert Lowell. But beyond their extraordinary contributions to the world of music and poetry, the thread that binds these men—and what particularly interests Jamison, the co-director of The Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center and a professor of psychiatry of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine—is their struggle with bipolar illness (also known as manic-depression), a mood disorder characterized by episodes of severe depression and mania.

Although this enigmatic illness (suffered by more than 10 million people in the United States alone, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness) was first classified dating back to the time of Hippocrates, it has lately found its way into the mainstream, thanks to the success of the feature film Silver Linings Playbook and Showtime’s wildly popular Homeland, whose producer once contacted Jamison to advise on an episode.

Of course, to Jamison, the disease is nothing new: She is one of the most widely regarded experts on mood disorders in the world and has spent the greater part of her 66 years not only studying bipolar illness, but living it. After years as a clinical psychologist first at UCLA and then at Johns Hopkins, she “outed” herself in her 1995 bestselling memoir An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness.

“There were many concerns in writing the book,” admits Jamison, who gave up her clinical practice after An Unquiet Mind came out, but continues to teach Hopkins medical students and residents. She feared that she might lose her license. (She didn’t.) And beyond that, there was a fear of “how one’s work would be perceived once you have this diagnosis on your forehead. . . . it’s very easy to be defined by that.”

There were more personal concerns as well. “In my own WASP military family, you didn’t talk about mental illness,” says Jamison, with a smile. “You are brought up to be private. The first time I got up and spoke publically about this, all I could think about was my grandmother and her white gloves and her hat and her D.A.R. meetings, and what on earth she would be thinking?”

Even in Hopkins’s hallowed halls, Jamison is considered a luminary—known for her ability to offer acute insight on the disease as clinician and patient, as well as for her eloquent writings on mood disorders (among them: the bestselling Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, Exuberance, and a 1,262-page tome that is considered the definitive textbook on bipolar disorder).

Associate professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine Thomas Styron, whose father, the late literary titan William Styron, was a close friend of Jamison’s, has high praise for her.

“She is an absolute giant in the field of psychiatry as someone who has been able to combine top-notch academic work with this incredible personal story, which has been such a huge service to people who suffer from mental illness,” he says.

Her students are starry-eyed, too. “When medical residents come to look at Hopkins, they say, ‘If I’m here, do I actually get to work with Dr. Jamison?'” says Dr. Karen Swartz, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Hopkins. “Ray DePaulo [co-director of the Mood Disorders Center] once said, ‘She may be the most famous person with bipolar disorder in the world.'”

She lives the more low-key life of a scholar, though, as she shuttles between the charming circa-1800’s renovated barn in Sparks she shares with her husband, Hopkins cardiologist and professor of medicine Thomas Traill, and their stately 1920s home in Washington, D.C., where Jamison spends most of her time immersed in the life of Lowell, who is the subject of her next book.

“He’s someone I read after my first breakdown when I was 17,” says Jamison, who obtained access to Lowell’s hospital records to write her book. “He has just stuck with me. I am writing about him because I admire him as an artist and a great, great original poet. He was hospitalized 20 times for mania, but he had depressions after each one of them. He was a remarkable man; a remarkable human being.”

Jamison’s husband can’t help but to gush a bit when he discusses his wife’s work. “She’s a major-league scientist,” weighs in Traill, who laughs that their obvious mutual affection for each other can be “nauseating.” “You have to set that against the fact that not only is she someone who wrote a memoir, but she’s also passionate about language and writing. These books come from a prodigious love of words and literature and serious, worked-over writing.”

Given her long list of accolades, it would be easy to assume that Jamison’s disease has scarcely hindered her. But Jamison’s accomplishments—from earning the MacArthur Award to an honorary degree from Brown University to being named Time magazine’s “Hero of Medicine” in 1997—are not the whole story, she is quick to point out.

“My life isn’t my C.V.,” says Jamison. “My professional accomplishments mean a huge amount to me, but it’s scarcely the only thing in my life. There are years lost to pain. When I would stop my medication, I would stop living. I would get manic and then depressed—I wouldn’t wish a day of that on anyone.”

As the youngest child of three, Jamison spent most of her formative years around Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., where her father, Marshall, was a meteorologist and pilot. “I had a great childhood,” she says. “I couldn’t have been any happier. My father was in love with life and with ideas. My mother was the best mother—if you had to put together a mother, you would say, ‘This was God on a good day.'”

Early on, a young Kay showed a passion for science, receiving her first copy of Gray’s Anatomy at 12 and touring St. Elizabeth’s, the federal psychiatric hospital, when she was 15. (“I found it fascinating and horrifying,” she recalls.) “I knew I wanted a life in science because the questions were always interesting to me.”

By age 17, while a senior in high school, Jamison experienced her first manic-depressive episode. “I wasn’t sleeping very much,” she recalls. “I was full of what I thought were fabulous ideas, which, in fact, were pretty terrible ones and, at the time, as with a lot of people who get manic, I didn’t see it as anything strange—it was pretty much an extension of my natural personality. Life was just too wonderful.”

Until it wasn’t. “At some point, I crashed,” she says. “I could scarcely get out of bed. I had never thought about suicide in my life, and I started thinking about ways to kill myself.”

In the ensuing decade, Jamison managed to convince herself that her violent mood swings were merely an extension of her passionate personality. It wasn’t until Jamison was already an assistant professor of psychiatry at UCLA in 1974, a full decade later, that it became clear to her that she needed help.

“I [had gone] floridly, psychotically manic,” recalls Jamison who, among other things, went on a wild shopping spree at the height of her mania and purchased a stuffed fox from a taxidermist in Virginia. “Buying that fox was absolutely characteristic of being manic. I knew I needed it; I couldn’t wait, and it took on a cosmic significance for me.”

By the time the fox arrived at her office, Jamison had long forgotten about her purchase. “I was sitting in my clinic one day, and there were lots of patients in the waiting room, and one of the secretaries said, ‘Dr. Jamison, there’s a big shipping crate out here,’ and it was this fox, which I had somehow felt the need to fly first class. It was just completely ridiculous,” she says, now able to laugh at the memory.

She began treatment with “a tremendously good psychiatrist,” she says. But even with excellent care, Jamison attempted suicide in 1976 after going off of her lithium, a mood stabilizer often used to control mania. “I think about it all the time,” she says quietly. “I think about the people who haven’t survived.”

Having been to the brink and back, these days, she has made it her mission to advocate and educate, particularly on college campuses across the country.

“The major age of onset for mood disorders is late teens, early 20s,” says Jamison, who also sits on the advisory board of the National Network of Depression Centers, a mental-health network working to transform the field of depressive illness and related mood disorders. “It’s a hard disease, but it’s a common disease. People consistently underestimate how serious these illnesses are. They also don’t understand how treatable they are.”

While Jamison chose to come clean, she advises others to think it through before coming forward. “You don’t know what the consequences are going to be,” she says. “In many instances, people find it has a freeing effect, but you don’t know how people are going to take it. I’ve had incredible support from my colleagues and friends, but there were also people who have said wicked things—there’s a lot of animosity out there. It’s not simple; it’s not straightforward.”

And yet, thanks to her breaking the silence, she is widely credited with helping to lift the stigma often associated with mental illness. “That she has been so accomplished has got to challenge people’s assumptions about bipolar disorder,” says Karen Swartz.

Despite her severe illness, Jamison is undaunted. “I’ve had a great life and would have no cause to complain at all,” says Jamison. “One of the things my mother believed is that you absolutely have to play the hand you’ve been dealt and not sit around wishing your cards were different. In life, you are dealt high cards and low cards, but it’s really about how you put them on the table and use them to help other people.”

Sandy Bauer’s fingers tremble, the light bouncing off her red nail polish as she clenches her hands together. Her eyes well with more than two decades of grief, frustration, and longing as she recalls the worst day of her life. It’s not often that she talks about her younger sister, but when she does, the emotion and the loss jar her as if it were still 1989. That year someone savagely murdered 27-year-old Terry Schmansky inside her Dundalk apartment. The lifeless body of the young mother of three was found by Schmansky’s brother and her oldest daughter, Tonya, nine at the time, who had just returned from bowling while Terry worked her shift at nearby Squires restaurant.

“She was the sweetest thing on earth. She should have never lost her life,” says Bauer, who babysat her sister’s other two children that September night.

Twenty-four winters have since passed, the case growing colder with each one. Somebody has gotten away with murder.

“It’s hard,” says Tonya, now 32, who has struggled with the unfathomable lingering mental effects of discovering her mother’s maimed body. “I remember every bit of it and, for a long time, it took a very big toll on me. I have post-traumatic stress disorder from that day.” Bauer, a medical-billing specialist who lives in Essex, remains convinced that she knows who killed her sister and, for seven years after the murder, fought tirelessly to convince investigators to see it her way. Police found evidence from the scene, including the weapon, a knife tossed into a Dumpster just down the road at a gas station. But still, no one has ever been named a suspect, a mind-boggling issue for Bauer.

Years of anger, Bauer admits, caused her to lose her religious faith and even blame God. “I was depressed for seven years. I was engulfed in it,” she says. “I was addicted to solving it, and I really just began to realize this is way too much sadness. I had a healthy, beautiful family of my own, and I needed to look at the sunshine, and I needed to let go.”

But police say they haven’t forgotten about Schmansky, or any of the other 233 crimes and missing person cases prioritized by the Baltimore County Police Department’s cold case unit. Many will likely remain unsolved, but since being formed in 2002 by now-retired detective Philip Marll and his partner of 25 years, James Tincher, two-dozen cases—including several decades-old crimes—have been cracked. Each year, the cold case unit’s two or three successes, often transposing new DNA technology onto old cases, bring not just closure for victims’ families, but also for a committed group of detectives that make up the squad. In 2012, police made arrests in two cold cases, including the murder of another young Dundalk woman, 24-year-old Heidi Louise Bernadzikowski, who was killed in the spring of 2000. Already this year, they arrested the suspects wanted for a 2009 Woodlawn murder.

For Marll, who will celebrate his first full year of retirement next month, his dedication to each of the investigations he worked remains as strong as his distinct Bawlmerese accent. But he’s especially committed to ones like the Schmansky case, the heartbreaking crimes that he never solved. After he left the force, he asked to keep his department cell phone active so prosecutors, colleagues, or victims’ families could reach him, if need be, about an unsolved case.

“We e-mail the heck out of Phil,” says Det. Carroll Bollinger, 50, a 28-year veteran who joined the cold case unit nine years ago. “Or I’ll call him and say, ‘Where were you going with this line of thought?’ if I’m looking at a case that was his.”

One cold case Marll worked was the murder of Sheila Rascoe, an Essex woman, raped and strangled in her apartment in 1979. Her killer, Thomas Grant, lived just down the street, it would turn out. He walked free for nearly 20 years before Marll and his unit, using science not available at the time of the crime—the ability to test and identify an individual’s unique genetic encoding molecule, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)—put him away.

Rascoe and her boyfriend, Albert Bell, had planned a weekend getaway to Richmond, VA, but when Bell arrived to pick her up, he found Rascoe’s partially nude body with a vacuum-cleaner cord squeezing her neck. Bell himself drew the initial suspicions of investigators when it was discovered that he was married—which Rascoe never knew. But any error of his ways ended there, and police eventually pushed the case aside. “There was a lack of evidence. Back when it happened, they didn’t have DNA,” says Marll.

When Marll and Tincher created the cold case unit, they did so with the intention of going first after unsolved rape and murder cases. The county had just joined an FBI-backed nationwide database called “CODIS,” which stands for “Combined DNA Index System.” The database could match the DNA from crime scenes to criminals, and the detectives knew they had a better shot at solving the cold cases where DNA meant everything.

“Sheila Rascoe happened to be one of the cases. We figured, let’s knock these out, the rape-murders, because if there is any evidence it’s gonna be easy evidence to locate,” says Marll. In 2005, the detectives returned to her case and didn’t take long to spot a T-shirt in a photo of the victim lying near her buttocks area. Sure enough, the shirt sat locked away with evidence from the scene and was sent off to county police forensic biologist Laura Pawlowski, who located a semen stain.

She immediately ordered the semen to be tested at an outside lab and compared against CODIS. Unlike on TV, warns Pawlowski and others in law enforcement, a DNA hit takes time. A lot.

“It would take me at least a few weeks to do the DNA process,” she says. “I enter it into CODIS and CODIS will not just spit out a name. It’ll tell me [if] I have a match. Then I have to contact the lab I have a match with. They have to do all these confirmation steps before they release a name to me.” Once a suspect’s name is retrieved, investigators must then swab the suspect after he’s charged and do their own confirmation to avoid any potential computer errors.

“The CSI shows are about as real as professional wrestling,” says Lt. William Duty, commander of the homicide and cold case units. “You’ll see a guy [on TV] bring a technician in a DNA lab a piece of evidence, and they’ll work up a profile and enter it into their CODIS without any kind of authentication. And then they come up with a name from a computer while he’s standing there, like he’s waiting at a McDonald’s for a cheeseburger.”

Eventually, however, Grant’s name came back after being entered into CODIS sometime during one of his five prior arrests over the years on sex offenses. In 2008, a judge sentenced him to two life terms after the case’s trial. “When we went back with the family, it was jubilation,” recalls Marll. “They were extremely happy because they still cared about her from 1979 like it happened yesterday.”

The four officers and the commander who make up the Baltimore County Police cold case unit warn that the artistic license taken by our favorite crime dramas goes well beyond condensed storylines, sometimes with real-world implications. Shows like CSI and Cold Case have also made it harder when cases are brought to trial, tainting jurors with what police refer to as the “CSI effect,” according to law enforcement.

“In our homicide trials, the prosecutors have to spend time in the beginning of the trial explaining to the jury that this isn’t CSI, that they have to forget what they watch on TV,” adds Cpl. Larry Gick, 40, an 18-year veteran who joined the cold case unit in 2007.

The process of getting prosecutors to take a cold case to a jury can also be painstaking, not like the quick meetings so often portrayed on Law & Order. Prosecutors don’t hesitate to send detectives back to work for a more complete investigation. “Certainly when we say ‘no’ I believe they’re disappointed,” says Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger. “We only get one bite at it so if you go to trial and lose, even if the person turned around and said after, ‘Yeah, I did it,’ you could never prosecute it again.”

“It’s definitely not the one-hour show you see on TV,” adds Gick, 40.

And of course, there’s the process of looking into a case gone cold, requiring detectives to examine several thousand pages of documents and notes from binders bursting at the rings. They’ll reach out to former detectives and re-interview witnesses, occasionally traveling out of state as witnesses or family may have moved away after so many years.

For the cold case detectives, time often counts on money. This year, for example, the unit will work from a tighter budget after losing a federal award they’d received the past two years. The grant could be applied to travel, DNA costs, and overtime. It’s a frustrating, but not completely debilitating hit for the unit.

“It is a little depressing we don’t have it because it was always something we could fall back on,” Gick says. “The cases won’t suffer. It just presents doors that are a little harder to push open.”

In fact, Gick says, funding cuts could slow new DNA testing on a potential clue in the Terry Schmansky case. He notes investigators have recently taken up evidence that they hope will shed new light on a potential suspect thanks to the latest updates in DNA technology and are awaiting results. “It varies how long it will take [for results] because with the grant running out, it depends on whether this evidence will make it out [in time] to be tested under the grant, or if it has to happen in house and that may take a little longer,” he says. “This is the last piece of evidence to be tested for DNA. There’s nothing left,” says Gick. “So if this doesn’t provide us with anything, we have nothing left to test.”

Marll holds out hope that justice will be brought to Schmansky’s killer, no matter how long it takes. He admits that the difficulty in solving the murder stems from a lack of physical evidence. “It’s a very tough case. When you commit a crime by yourself, and you don’t tell anybody, and there’s no witnesses to testify against you, and you don’t leave any physical evidence there, it’s almost impossible for police. We look like dunces that we can’t clear it,” he says.

However, not all cases rely on hard evidence, physical clues, or DNA technology in order to be cracked. Sometimes, investigators believe all a case needs is testimony from the right witness to bring a suspect to trial.

Meanwhile, Sandy Bauer checks in with police periodically. The last time was a year and a half ago.

“I just feel like there’s nothing more I can do,” she says. But still, she keeps the cold case unit’s number tucked in her pocketbook.

And Tonya Schmansky still thinks about her mother every day. She sees her in her two young children, especially her daughter, now 10—who shares a middle name, Anne, with her murdered grandmother and is just a year older than Tonya was when she found her mother’s body. She revels in the good memories of their time together to ease the pain of all the time since lost.

Her aunt feels the same way.

“I don’t want to say I’ve given up hope, but I guess I’ve learned to deal. You can’t live your life worrying and worrying and worrying about something you can’t control,” Bauer says. “I’ve just kind of learned to live with the fact that we won’t know.”

Only time will tell if her sister’s story has an ending.

“I think that for some weird reason it’s just not meant to be solved,” Bauer laments, adding that perhaps there is still somebody out there who will call with a tip that turns the case.

“It would be nice for me to be wrong.”

Still carrying his Nerf dart gun, 10-year-old Dominic Solesky ran outside and down the alley behind his family’s East Towson row home after hearing his friend, Scotty Mason, screaming.

“We’d played baseball earlier in the day, and we were playing tag,” Dominic recalls five years later. “Two of our other friends met me at the gate on the side of the alley and said they saw him get attacked. I ran down and saw his Nerf gun and blood on the pavement—and then I saw the pit bull trying to jump out of its kennel.”

The pit bull’s owner had pulled his dog off Scotty and had already begun cleaning up the 9-year-old’s face and shoulder when Dominic arrived on the scene. As the owner, in his kitchen, was warning Scotty not to tell his parents what had happened, the dog leapt off the back of another pit bull in the kennel and got free.

“I was scared and started running toward my house,” says Dominic, who weighed about 60 pounds at the time. “I looked behind me and saw my two friends—one went over a fence and the other hid next to a telephone pole—and the dog gaining ground. I kept running, but he caught me and jumped on my back and knocked me down. I tried to push him off, and he bit my arm and then he bit my face.

“It was sort of pouncing on me and barking all at once.”

By the time the owner pulled his pit bull, Clifford, off Dominic, the dog had ripped opened his thigh and severed his femoral artery.

Witnessing the attack and seeing Dominic lying in an expanding pool of blood, a neighbor dialed 911, pleading through tears for assistance.

“I just saw a dog attack a little boy. He’s covered in blood. He cannot walk,” the woman says on a tape of the emergency call. “This boy needs medical attention now . . . he’s hurt bad. . . . We need help now! We need help now!”

“Is the boy conscious?”

“Barely.”

“Please hurry.”

Another neighbor rushed over and applied pressure to the gaping wound, hoping to stem the bleeding until an ambulance arrived.

“It didn’t look like a dog bite,” says Dominic’s mother, Irene, who also ran to her son. “It looked like a shark attack.”

Later, as doctors at The Johns Hopkins Hospital emergency room worked to save Dominic’s life, the Baltimore County Fire Department dispatched a “wash detail” to the alley to clean up his blood. Dominic eventually underwent a second surgery and spent a year in rehab. Afterwards, the Solesky’s civil claim against the pit bull’s owner was discharged when the man filed for bankruptcy protection. However, Anthony Solesky, Dominic’s father, also sued the pit bull owner’s landlord for negligence, alleging knowledge of the dog’s “vicious” nature in court papers.

With Dominic left with several scars but otherwise long-since recovered and a member of his high school’s wrestling team, that lawsuit finally completed its circuitous journey through the Baltimore County and Maryland judicial systems last spring. The state Court of Appeals (Maryland’s highest court) ruling: Pit bulls are “inherently dangerous” and, therefore, a landlord with knowledge of a pit bull on their property can be held “strictly liable”—automatically culpable, in other words—for the dog’s actions. For all intents and purposes, the court’s decision set a new precedent, negating the state’s so-called “free-first-bite” rule, which held that in order for a dog’s owner—not to mention, a landlord—to be liable, a dog must be shown to have bitten previously. Suddenly, pit bulls became the exception to that rule.

State Farm, the landlord’s homeowner’s insurance carrier in Dominic’s case, quickly settled out of court with the Soleskys.

The real fight, however, was just beginning. Days after the court decision, a Baltimore Sun column by Dan Rodricks supporting the ruling and characterizing pit bulls as “four-legged time bombs” ignited a firestorm of online comments from pit-bull lovers. Over the next few weeks, Facebook, pit-bull-friendly websites, and editorial pages lit up in outrage over the court’s “breed-specific” decision. A month after the ruling, under intense pressure from pit bull advocates and the rescue community, which included a rally in Annapolis, the General Assembly set up a Pit Bull Task Force. But in a special session this fall, legislators failed to pass a bill addressing the court decision.

And while pit bull supporters and the rescue community are concerned that shelters, dog parks, animal hospitals, and third parties can be held automatically liable for the actions of pit bulls on their property, their more pressing worry has been that landlords would force tenants and families to choose between their pets and their homes. Not without good reason. In the aftermath of the Court of Appeals decision, organizations such as the Maryland SPCA, the Humane Society of the United States, and the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS), received hundreds of calls from panicked pit bull and crossbred pit bull owners about the impact of the decision. (The court has since ruled their decision only applies to purebred pit bulls.) At last count at BARCS, more than 40 pit bull owners have given up their pets to the shelter following the court ruling, with many explicitly mentioning eviction warnings from their landlords.

“It’s been heartbreaking at times, parents with children, everybody crying, including our staff members and other customers,” says Jennifer Brause, BARCS’s executive director. “This has been hard for everyone. We even had a purebred boxer come in—a dog that obviously isn’t a pit bull—because the landlord thought it was a pit bull and suddenly got nervous after the ruling. The tenant didn’t have the resources to fight and, in the end, was afraid of retaliation by the landlord.”

Meanwhile, pit bull supporters continue their campaign for legislative action to override the pit-bull-specific language in the Court of Appeals ruling. Among other events, the SPCA of Anne Arundel County hosted its first Pit Bull Appreciation Month this fall. B-More Dog, a pit bull outreach and education organization launched in 2007 as Baltimore County considered pit-bull-specific legislation in the wake of Dominic’s attack, hosted a “Holiday Pit Bulls on Parade” walk at the Inner Harbor in December. And this month, Pact for Animals will host a daylong, “Punish the Deed, Not the Breed” symposium at the University of Baltimore.

“This pit bull ruling is so difficult because it started as a court decision and not in the legislature, where it bubbled up almost immediately afterwards,” says Aileen Gabbey, executive director of the Maryland SPCA, who has testified in Annapolis about the ruling. “Animal welfare groups were really taken aback, obviously upset, and very worried about what this meant for pets and people. There was the [Annapolis] rally and animal-rights groups started getting phone calls to their legislators, who, to their credit, listened to their constituents. The more they heard, the more they realized they needed to act.”

Elected officials are readying to tackle the issue again in the General Assembly. But the question remains, can the state Senate and House find a way to protect the public from vicious dogs without harming families who love their pit bull pets? Right now, pit bull owners and landlords remain in a kind of limbo as another lawsuit—this one filed in federal court by Baltimore City pit bull owners—challenges the constitutionality of evictions based on the Maryland Court of Appeals decision.

Late last summer, the pit bull uproar galvanized when the management board that oversees East Baltimore’s low-income Armistead Gardens housing co-op, a neighborhood of roughly 1,500 homes, sent a letter to leaseholders ordering them to give up their pit bulls and threatening legal action, “including termination” of leases. In reaction, Armistead Gardens resident Joseph Weigel reached out to the law office of Barry Glazer, filing a federal suit, later joined by neighbors Joanna Profili and Jenine Gangi and amended to a class-action complaint, that alleges, among other things, the wrongful abrogation of their property rights and an unjust attempt to terminate their leases. All three express a deep affection for their pit bulls.

Weigel is described as “the disabled owner of Angel, a loving and obedient dog believed to be a pit bull or pit-bull mix” in court papers. Profili, a 28-year-old single mother of two and a machine operator recently laid off from her job, is raising her children alone after their father was tragically killed on Christmas Eve, 2011. According to the suit, she wants to avoid having to give up the family’s beloved 2-year-old pit bull, “which serves as a reminder to her children of happier times with their father.”

Gangi, a veterinarian’s assistant at the Essex Middle River Veterinary Center and a trainer at PETCO in the Golden Ring Mall, has two crossbred pit bulls, Tank Girl, 6, and Baby Girl, 2, who also serve as blood donors at her veterinary clinic.

“Since the court decision was made, it’s been very stressful,” Gangi says. “People became very paranoid that their dogs are going to be taken away or they’re going to be forced to move. For me, my dogs are my children. I think of Tank as my ‘first born.’ They’re very social animals—they play tricks, they play dead—and they’ve gotten me though some rough times. If my dogs were ever taken away, I’d be devastated.”

“There’s an estimated 500 pit bulls or pit-bull mixes in Armistead Gardens, but this really impacts Maryland as a whole,” says Charles H. Edwards IV, an attorney in Glazer’s office, which has taken the case pro-bono. “We made a decision to attack the law and not just seek relief for the three Armistead Gardens residents. This shouldn’t be allowed to stand in Maryland.”

Christopher Moll, another Armistead Gardens resident, a married refrigeration technician with three kids, and the owner of a 4-year-old pit mix named Dahlia, is not a part of the federal complaint, but has become a pit bull activist following the court’s ruling. He participated in a B-More Dog pit bull event outside the local elementary school as well as attending the organization’s “Holiday Pit Bulls on Parade” downtown with his family.

Moll believes that the court ruling and surrounding media attention has not just frightened pit bull owners, but likely has also scared off potential owners from adopting animals—something Brause mentioned as well. “I’ve been to BARCS and the Baltimore County Animal Shelter and interacted with the dogs there and taken them out,” he says. “They’re approachable, they’re not dangerous.”

Moll maintains, as do all pit bull supporters, that the problem is not the pit bull breeds, generally considered the American pit bull terrier, the American Staffordshire, the Staffordshire bull terrier, or mixes thereof, but each dog’s training. “Their behavior is all based on how the dogs are raised, it’s definitely not the breed,” Moll says. “Our dog has never showed any signs of aggression. My kids have jumped up and down on her, pulled her ears, and stuck their hands in her bowl when she was eating.”

In its decision, the Court of Appeals painted a different picture of pit bulls as it highlighted its long frustration with existing law, or lack thereof, regarding attacks, noting the mauling of another 10-year-old Maryland boy, John L. Clark, in a case that came before the court in 1916. More recently, over the past 13 years, the court said in its opinion, “there have been no less than seven instances of serious maulings by pit bulls upon Maryland residents resulting in either serious injuries or death that have reached the appellate courts . . . including the two boys attacked by the pit bull in the present case.”

In its opinion, the Court of Appeals cited, among other studies, research published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association that found that from 1979 through 1996, dog attacks caused more than 300 U.S. fatalities, and that pit bulls were involved in approximately one-third of the deaths during a 12-year period from 1981 through 1992.

While the pit bull controversy here garnered not just local and state headlines, but national attention, it is hardly the first time legal questions and legislation around pit bulls in the state has popped up.

In an effort to protect the public, cities and counties have often taken matters into their own hands, passing pit-bull-specific legislation. Most notably, Prince George’s County banned pit bulls outright in 1996 following several attacks. Baltimore County, as mentioned earlier, considered requiring pit-bull-specific licensing and liability insurance in the aftermath of Dominic’s attack. This summer, Hagerstown’s City Council considered strict liability legislation on pit bull owners and landlords, but ultimately placed the proposed ordinance on hold. Two small Maryland towns, North Beach and Port Deposit, also outlawed pit bulls in recent years. North Beach, however, rescinded the ban this summer.

According to DogsBite.org, a national dog-bite victims’ group, which monitors attacks, breed-specific legislation, and court rulings, more than 500 municipalities and 18 counties in the U.S. have some type of pit-bull-specific law. Founded by Colleen Lynn, whose arm was broken in a pit-bull attack, DogsBite.org also reports that 23 countries regulate pit bulls and “dangerous dog” breeds with national breed-specific laws.

Although pit bulls have a complicated history—bred in England to “bait bulls” (a popular blood sport where dogs fought tethered bulls) and, later, in the U.S. to fight each other—pit bulls and pit-bull mixes have not always had such a bad reputation. For a long time, they were the all-American dog in the country’s imagination. The Little Rascals’ dog “Petey” was a pit bull; so was Buster Brown’s dog. Theodore Roosevelt had a pit bull terrier named “Pete.” Helen Keller’s companion was a “pittie” named Sir Thomas. Gen. George Patton had a white pit bull named “Willie” and pit bulls served as U.S. military mascots and in combat during both World Wars.

Lynn believes that the number of pit-bull attacks—and, therefore, their aggressive reputation—is linked to an explosion in the number of pit bulls since the late 1970s. She puts the cause of the problem at the feet of irresponsible owners and breeders, as well as an increase in the number of dogs exploited for fighting—or at the very least—their macho image. But Lynn also believes pit bulls to be dangerous regardless of how well-bred or how well-trained they may be, due to what she describes as their “hold-and-shake” biting style and inherent tenacity.

The bottom line, says Marcy Setter of Pit Bull Rescue Central, an online resource for pit bull owners, is that there are not any easy answers.

Pit bulls can be mishandled, abused, and taught to be aggressive.

They can also be wonderful family pets.

“Everybody wants you to wave a magic wand,” Setter says. “We need to move slowly in the right direction, but breed-specific legislation doesn’t work—it’s expensive for local animal control and identification alone is too complicated.” (When is a pit-bull mix defined as a pit bull, for example?)

Instead of breed-specific laws, Setter says elected officials should propose incentives to spay and neuter and stronger leash laws, including enforcement and higher fines, that can fund a more-responsive animal control effort. “It’s a horrible situation when a victim is attacked and that should never happen to anyone,” she says. “The problem is important, and we need laws. But we should write laws so that animal control can be proactive and respond to neighbors’ complaints. Usually, there are harmful signs before something happens.”

Gabbey, the Maryland SPCA executive director, says much the same thing. “There are leash laws and in a lot of quarters of the city, the rules are broken,” she says. “Ideally, it’d be nice, when a fence is broken or a neighbor makes a complaint providing a dog’s address, that there’d be a response. Right now, typically, animal control is only reactive. I’d say in most communities, animal control is woefully underfunded, and without that, these things are hard to do.”

To the current controversy, Gabbey notes that state legislators heard from concerned constituents throughout the state about the urgency around the pit bull ruling before the second special season last year and will again during the regular session. “Pit bulls owners of Maryland want to see this resolved,” she says. The Senate and House, once they began working during the special session, took different approaches to crafting a solution—although they did find some key common ground.

Both chambers proposed bills to override the Court of Appeals’ pit bull-specific language and treat all breeds the same. Both also considered lowering the strict-liability threshold for landlords.

However, the Senate also agreed with the Court of Appeals’ decision in removing the old, “free-first-bite,” common-law guideline, says Montgomery County state Sen. Brian Frosh, a co-chair of the Pit Bull Task Force.

The House legislation, on the other hand, essentially created more liability exemptions for dog owners than the Senate bill. Pit bull owners, under the House proposal, would be held strictly liable, for example, if their dog was off leash.

“The main difference between the Senate bill and the House bill was that the Senate bill would’ve aligned Maryland with about 35 other states that have eliminated the so-called ‘one-free-bite’ rule,” says Frosh. “I’m optimistic, but we still need to reach a consensus.”

“We are all anxiously awaiting for the legislative session to start,” says Gabbey. “People who are landlords and people who own pit bulls are still worried until legislation is passed. Frankly, I think a lot of damage has already been done.”

Did you play cards as a young boy?

I played poker for the first time when I was 16 and I went full-time when I was about 19. I basically went to college for my parents, but was spending all my time getting better at poker.

Talk to me about how you practiced and honed your skills.
I was playing 95 percent of my hours online and I was playing with a fake ID sometimes. I played pretty much all poker online, except I played at an 18 and over Indian reservation in upstate New York. I would go up there five or six times a year. But I probably played about 70 hours a week online. As soon as I went to college, I got introduced to underground games and I was playing a decent amount. Soon after, I spent every summer in Vegas.

What was it about poker that interested you?
I always got straight A’s—all the way from 6th grade on. And then when I went to college, I had to take all these boring pre-req courses. I thought, “That’s what I had been doing my whole life and now I have to do this all over again.” I found poker to be so much more complex, so much more interesting. It’s just a good combination of competition and gaming. It reminds me of sports, but also involves game theory. I didn’t do it for the money. I could easily make $2000, which was more than enough for spending money. I never looked at as an end all and be all.

Then I got addicted to drugs. I’m real open about it because I want to help other people. I’m just trying to give information to people struggling with drug addiction. Part of being an addict is being a perfectionist, and if you channel it into the right thing, you can be successful. It takes money to make money, just like anything in life. I was spending all the money I was making on drugs, and wasn’t able to make any because I wasn’t growing my bankroll. As soon as I got clean, I started doing pretty well for myself. I’ve had two or three relapses, but the first two were very early. If you’re playing a game that involves control, you need to be as level headed as possible. I don’t drink when I’m in Vegas; I don’t do any of that shit and it gives me an edge over other players. I was fortunate to pull myself together. There aren’t many successful poker players who have to deal with being a drug addict and having depression issues. You have to be careful when your mind is in that foggy state. If I feel like I’m having one of those days, I just don’t play at all.

What goes through your head during poker games?
Poker is the type of game, and anyone who plays poker will tell you, it’s all about making the right decisions—the rest will take care of itself. You can do everything right, but then it’s all in the cards. But, if the long run, you’re constantly making the right decisions, there’s no way you’re going to lose. It’s just like day trading. They win or lose money every day, but in the long run the market goes up. When I went in [to the tournament], I told myself I want to play every situation the best possible way and then I can live with the results. Even though everyone was telling me I was the best player, mathematically, I was only going to win 20 percent of the time. I had prepared myself to say whatever happens happens.

How’d you decide to wear the Orioles jersey at the final table?
I’ve always loved baseball. I played club at University of Maryland. At first, I was going to wear my high school baseball jersey. But then, I was getting a bunch of support from my hometown and the Orioles started to have such a successful season, so I wore my Adam Jones jersey—he’s my favorite player. Adam Jones was tweeting about it while i was playing. He started following me and sent me a message and said, “Thanks and it was super sick to watch you.”

How many days was the tournament?
It was seven 12-hour days, but I’m there all summer anyway. It’s funny because our house lease was only until the 16th. And so that night, we played until almost 3 a.m. and I had to go home and pack all my stuff and then finally went to bed and then drove back with all my stuff in tow to the final table.

At what point did you start to realize you might win the whole thing?
I definitely thought, “I’m going to have to get very luck to win this whole thing.” You’re never 100 percent.

I noticed you got pretty emotional when you won.
The thing is I guess I get pretty emotional from my mom’s side of the family. I didn’t see that coming. When I won, I saw my dad crying and it was only the third time in my life I had seen that. So it hit me, and I just lost it.

What are your thoughts on what you might do with the money?
Well I just signed a lease for an apartment in DC. I’m also going to be a silent partner in a real estate company. I’m going to meet with financial advisors that I trust. It’s really hard to trust people when it comes to investment. I’m going to be super careful. I’m going to continue to play poker, travel to Australia and Macaw. The biggest games in the world will be where poker is popular; and where really rich people want to spend money.

But yeah, it doesn’t even seem like real life. Everything has been so crazy. You go to Vegas every summer with goal of winning $100,000 or so and then I pretty much just won $10 million in two-and-a-half weeks.

How has your life changed since you won?
What’s kind of cool about it is that, if I wanted to, I could go around and have all the glamour and travel poker rooms and be recognized. But that’s the not the type of person I am. I just wanted to make a good living because I love doing it. And, If I go out to the grocery store, no one recognizes me. It’s pretty nice.

How do you feel about the slots decision being passed in MD?
We all want to be able to play poker online legally. Almost every country in the world you can play it online. It’s regulated in Spain, Italy, France; that’s what the US is going to do eventually. I had to live in Canada for 10 months just to practice legally. You have to leave your family in friends. I had to sacrifice things to pursue my dream. There are already so many illegal poker games in Maryland. People have no idea how many games there are. People are going to gamble no matter what. So, yeah, it was exciting. And if I could get linked up and be an ambassador to the new Harrah’s or National Harbor, that would be awesome.

Several years ago, David Swartz stumbled across an archival story from The Baltimore Sun recounting a brawl between his great grandfather, furrier James Swartz, and a customer who had come into his store to buy a coat for his wife. “The article said there was a disagreement and then an assault,” recounts David. “It said that James Swartz was arrested and the other man was taken out in an ambulance . . . so I guess we know who won.” Sitting by his son’s side, inside the stylish Lutherville-Timonium showroom of Mano Swartz, company president Richard Swartz smiles proudly at the story—not just because David, 23, joined the fifth-generation family business last fall, but because Richard loves family lore.

“There is a thread of strength that runs through many of my family’s stories,” says Richard, his voice thick with a Baltimore accent, the result of living here for most of his 53 years. “Hard times make you strong—hard has wiped out a lot of businesses, but it’s about your interaction with those obstacles that can make you strong.”

Indeed, the “fighting furrier” story is an apt metaphor for a family business—founded in 1889—that, despite the odds and the obstacles, still survives. Through the years, Mano Swartz has battled its way through the Great Depression (James Swartz lost part of the family fortune during that time), two recessions (the 1992 recession led to the business closing for a year), civil-rights opposition (in the ’50s, the store opened its doors to African-Americans—leading to an eventual death threat against James), and, of course, the wrath of animal-rights activists, who question the morality of wearing fur and try to make people feel threatened for choosing to wear it. (Who could forget Vogue’s fur-wearing editor Anna Wintour having a dead raccoon lobbed on her plate during a luncheon at The Four Seasons hotel?)

But 123 years since its founding, Mano Swartz is still going strong, selling upwards of 500 coats a year, remodeling between 600 and 800 coats (a “Mano makeover” they call it), and storing thousands of fur items—including a leopard rug given to James by his friend Winston Churchill—in a climate-controlled warehouse located several miles from the showroom.

Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Gov. William Donald Schaefer, and Colt’s Quarterback Johnny Unitas have all been Mano loyalists. (“When I gave Johnny Unitas a price for a coat, he went into a huddle with his wife,” cracks Richard. “Here’s a guy who invented strategy.”) And although the heyday for traditional, full-length furs was back in the glamorous Dynasty era of the ’80s, Mano Swartz, one of four fur retailers remaining in Baltimore (down from 50 or 60, according to Richard), isn’t going away any time soon.

Swartz’s story is a classic tale of survival of the fittest that begins in the late 19th century in Hungary where “Papa”—the original Mano Swartz , that is—worked as a forester (a modern-day park ranger) in Kishvarda, a small city in the northeast.

“My great-grandfather lived in a typical European place where 100 families had all the money, and there was no middle class,” says Richard, who relishes recounting his family’s colorful history. “The government said, ‘What are we going to do with all these [poor] people?’ So they put them in the military for life.”
To escape a lifetime of military service, Mano immigrated to New York City.

“He pursued what he knew well—animals,” says Richard. Like many other Jewish immigrants of the time, he got into the fur business, but he was an entrepreneur and pursued other avenues as well. Family legend has it that at one point, “Papa” headed to Colorado to capitalize on the California Gold Rush, entertaining the miners with his own “dance hall” (i.e. brothel) and even staging a bull fight, but the evening before the event, the animal escaped, so Mano, who had already collected his money, fled back to New York where he continued to work in fur. He eventually headed to Baltimore where he opened his eponymous store, Mano Swartz Furs, and later married Dina Saks (of the Saks Fifth Avenue family).

For decades, Mano Swartz Furs was a Baltimore City fixture, first on Lexington Street and later on Howard Street before moving to York Road in Towson in 1976, The Village of Cross Keys in 1992, and finally to Falls Road in 2006. In the ensuing years, Mano groomed his son, James (who, in turn, groomed his son Mano II, who groomed son, Richard) to take over the business. Entrepreneurship was in the family genes.

“My grandfather [James] was way ahead of his time,” says Richard. “He created the Veteran’s Day sale in Baltimore after the Second World War and offered anyone with honorable discharge papers 10 percent off. There was no discounting in retail back then—this was not done. In one day, he sold 150 coats!”

On a hot summer’s day, when fur is the farthest thing from anyone’s mind (unless you’re a Swartz, that is), Richard reflects on how his small family business (with only seven employees these days) has lasted for more than a century.
“Much of why we have flourished is due to our founding fathers,” explains Richard, noting the early adversity they faced. “My grandfather used to say that if it hadn’t been for the [Great] Depression, he would have been a millionaire many times over. But going through that added an element of conservatism, and, as a result, we never over expanded as so many businesses do once they are successful. Through the years, we have focused on getter better not bigger. And what could be timelier today?”

The family also cites consistency as a key to the company’s success.

“[There’s a certain way] way we answer the phone,” explains David, describing his very detailed training protocol. “This is how you present a coat to the customer after dropping off a delivery. This is how you greet customers and this is how you inspect a coat.”

Chimes in Richard: “We’ve had so many challenges through the years. We are ahead of other boutiques today because we’ve already had to face all these challenges.”

So, for instance, in the late ’90s, when business got tough because of changing tastes and trends, it occurred to Richard that many people had shelled out substantial sums for fur coats that were no longer in style. What if Mano Swartz took those coats and restyled them for contemporary tastes? And with that, the “Mano makeover” was born.
“Why does one business survive and another doesn’t?” asks Richard rhetorically. “It comes down to, how good are they are replacing lost sales? For us, what’s really driven our business is making over coats.”

And when the fur protests became heated in the ’80s, with the founding of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Swartz family took a balanced approach. “Our position all the way through has been that we embrace the freedom to choose not to be involved in furs,” says Richard. “But we also want respect for people who choose to wear fur.”

The naysayers, Richard claims, have quieted down because “they realize that the fur business is completely in sync with nature . . . It’s a renewable resource and all the products are bio-degradable and used responsibly. The protesters have moved on—9/11 changed things. After that, terrorizing people wasn’t okay anymore.”
David adds some trademark family humor to the dialogue. “There’s a joke in our industry that goes, ‘Why do people care about people wearing fur and not about people wearing leather?'” he says, pausing before he answers. “It’s easier to fight old women than bikers.”

Every year, when the mercury drops, the fur—from gloves to shearlings, vests, and coats—flies out of cold-storage and off the racks at Mano’s showroom. In 2011, U.S. fur retail volume hit $1.34 billion, a 3.4 percent increase over the previous year, according to the Fur Information Council of America (FICA). And while Richard doesn’t sell and tell, refusing to discuss profits, he does say that while sales peaked in the 1980s, they “are very steady and strong now—enough [for us] to eat steak every night.”

Richard’s wife, Debbie, also works for the family business (until recently, so did the late, great Teddy, a black miniature poodle who increased the cuteness quotient on the sales floor). A former curator at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, the down-to-earth Debbie—whose primary adornment is a tape measure around her neck—designs, edits, and curates the collection.

“If anyone ever told me I’d be married to a furrier and living below the Mason-Dixon line, I would have laughed,” says Debbie, who hails from New England and works with high-end fur designers such as Prabal Gurung to create exclusive designs. With Feng Shui in mind, Debbie also designed the elegant, well-appointed showroom that includes a pair of antique benches from the swan boats in the Boston Common and the original, stainless-steel vault door from the Lexington Street store. “My goal was to have small collections with some things in the back so you can really see the merchandise and appreciate it,” says Debbie. “I didn’t want, as Salieri [Mozart’s rival] said, ‘Too many notes.'”
While there are still floor-length minks for sale (with price tags ranging between $3,000 and $15,000), this is not your grandmother’s closet. In the showroom, merchandise runs the gamut—from fingerless fur-trimmed gloves and trendy boot toppers (for as little as $99) to chic fur pillows and Debbie’s own line of stylish handmade handbags. Fur is also used in more creative and unexpected ways—a cashmere cape with sable trim or a silver fox scarf that’s been dyed a deep burgundy.

“Mano Swartz has been a retail innovator,” explains Keith Kaplan, executive director of FICA. “[They] continually evolve their retail concept to reflect changing consumer tastes and fur and fashion trends.”

In early fall, longtime Lutherville customer Bernie Cook arrives at the store to pick up her beaver jacket which Debbie has refashioned into a vest. “The winters have been so warm, I wasn’t wearing it,” says Cook as she tries on her reversible silk-lined vest, which she proclaims is “perfect.” After a consultation with Debbie, Cook decides to add to her ever-growing fur collection (one coat, two jackets, two “Mano make-over” vests, among other pieces) and asks Debbie to design a chic French tam with the leftover fur scraps from her jacket. “I’ve never bought a fur anywhere else,” says Cook.

Cook’s first coat was an unexpected purchase. Thirty years ago, unbeknownst to her, Cook’s daughter had dropped out of college.

“When I found out, I went to Chiapparelli’s which was then in Towson, ordered a scotch, told them to save it for me, and went across the street to put $10 down on my first fur—a mink coat,” recalls Cook. “I came back and bought it the next day from the money I was saving on tuition.” Cook has been a customer ever since (and, five years ago, that mink was restyled into a reversible raincoat). “I bought my first coat from Richard’s father,” says Cook. “They’ve always been so great. I love coming here.”

Richard, Debbie, and David know they have a family legacy to live up to. “Richard’s great grandfather used to say, ‘It takes 100 years to grow a tree, and it takes one day to cut it down,'” says Debbie. “We never take our customers for granted. I think he would have been pleased to see that we are still living up to that standard.”

Carol Ott had enough. “Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of bed that morning,” she says. “I don’t know exactly what pushed me over the edge.”

For years, the feisty, 5-foot-1, mother of two dutifully attended Pigtown neighborhood meetings. Each time, the same topic—the shuttered shopping center at the intersection of Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevards—came up. It was bad enough that the community’s grocery store had departed. Now, across the street from the “Welcome to Pigtown” mural at the Southwest Baltimore neighborhood’s gateway, the abandoned shopping center had degenerated into an open-air drug market and the portico alongside the long-gone Save-a-Lot, for all intents and purposes, had become a homeless camp.

“When I moved there in 2000, the grocery store was still open, but it closed several years later and became an eyesore, garbage strewn everywhere,” Ott recalls. “Nobody was maintaining it. A doctor and his business partners, including at least one other physician, owned it, and were doing nothing to improve it. Apparently, they wanted an extraordinary amount of money for the property and, meanwhile, the drug activity kept up.”

Frustrated at another community meeting one night—“we had like five different neighborhood groups then, and I went to most of them,” she says—Ott stood up and walked out, swearing she was done with meetings. “There’s got to be a better way of dealing with this,” she recalls thinking. “It was typical of neighborhood meetings anywhere, city or suburbs, doesn’t matter. Same people, same complaints, nobody steps up. I figured I’d force the shopping center owners’ hand and make it public on the Internet. If you ‘Google’ your doctor—and I’m good at this stuff—and it comes up that they’re a slumlord, well, they probably aren’t going to like that.”

Not long after reaching her boiling point in late 2008, Ott launched her still-active, slightly infamous WordPress blog—Baltimore Slumlord Watch. The blog, which includes pictures Ott takes of abandoned properties as well as “reader-submitted” photos of abandoned homes, provides information on the legal history and housing violations of blighted properties, their impact on the surrounding neighborhood, contact information for local elected officials, and the names and addresses of negligent owners. It’s direct, data-base researched, and at times, just a bit snarky, like Ott, who typically goes vacant-house hunting in jeans and bright red Converse high tops, generally toting a cellphone camera—and box cutter, for protection. It’s not a coincidence, she notes, that vacant homes attract crime. (Until this story, Ott maintained her anonymity as the person behind Baltimore Slumlord Watch, partly for fear of retribution toward her family.)

Her initial post outed the Timonium doctor listed as the resident agent for the company that owned the then-vacant Pigtown shopping center and listed the hospital where he had surgical privileges. From there, the plan to goad one irresponsible landlord into accountability grew into a citywide housing resource. Ott regularly posts updates on Baltimore issues like lead paint and fire-department station closings, as well as vacant housing efforts in other cities.

Today, Baltimore Slumlord Watch gets 12,000-15,000 hits in an average month, and the blog possesses genuine social media clout. “Friends” and “followers” on Facebook and Twitter include City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young, Baltimore City Del. Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr., and Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, among other politicos, not to mention numerous housing advocates and journalists. Not all are necessarily fans, however; one local columnist and talk-show host, Ott says, blocked her Twitter account after describing the blog as a negative portrayal of Baltimore.

“I’ve known Carol for 10 or 12 years and rebuilding neighborhoods has always been a passion of hers,” says Baltimore City Councilman William H. Cole IV, whose district formerly included Pigtown. “We haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, and believe me, she’s someone who will let you know where she stands. But I support what she’s doing. She’s letting people know who holds ownership of the abandoned properties in their neighborhood—and this is not always easy to find out—I know, from experience. She brings the truth out in the open—whether the property is owned by a private individual, speculator, or the mayor and City Council.” Or the religiously affiliated.

While Ott readily admits her personality bends toward sarcastic, she generally keeps posts matter-of-fact, preferring to simply share information from the state Department of Assessments and Taxation and other government websites to expose negligent owners. “I’m just the messenger,” she says. Though, she sometimes can’t help herself, for example, posting “WWJD?” headlines above photos of several church and pastor-owned blighted properties. And “Would You Like a Vacant With That Pizza?” above a photo of a dilapidated property owned by a pizzeria owner. She headlined posts about a landlord and resident agent with familiar and lengthy legal histories, “The Adventures of Stanley and Bud” and “More Fun with Stanley and Bud.”

Although it’s difficult to directly link outing a landlord on the blog to a subsequent rehab or repair, the public revelation of the Pigtown shopping center owner proved a difference-maker. Three weeks after her first post, the blog received a reply from the owner-doctor, who complained about the police response to crime and a deal to sell the property that fell through. However, within a few months, maintenance improved and, eventually, tenants moved in, including a Dollar General store, Zips Dry Cleaners, and a busy carryout restaurant, all there today.

“Once it became known who owned the property, they suddenly became responsive,” says Cole. “When they responded online, I was happy to see they were paying attention. Shame worked. You put the first and last names of these property owners online and, suddenly, they get nervous.”

While it started with just photos and information on a few vacant houses in her neighborhood, the Slumlord Watch blog expanded from its Pigtown focus after Ott learned of a bad fire at a vacant home in West Baltimore. She tried unsuccessfully to get the address of the home from online sources, finally jumping on a bus to see for herself and take photos.

“The bus driver was a little concerned about my safety and said, ‘Are you sure you wanna get off here?,’” Ott remembers. “I had never done anything like that before.” Almost immediately after taking the blog beyond Pigtown, Ott began getting inundated with e-mails about blighted properties elsewhere. Often, readers seek advice after they’ve reported a troublesome vacant home to no avail; other times, the blog serves as an outlet for frustration. “At first, the blog was just a very spur-of-the-moment reaction to the vacant shopping center,” Ott says. “I knew there were a lot of abandoned properties in the city, but I really didn’t know the extent at that time. No idea.”

Cole and several people close to Ott knew, or guessed, that Slumlord Watch was her handiwork, but otherwise she maintained her privacy. “She wanted to keep it anonymous and asked me to protect that,” Cole says. “I understood. A lot of these landlords are not nice people.” One landlord, currently incarcerated, was referred to as a drug kingpin.

E-mails from property owners, unsurprisingly, are nasty, but typically threaten legal action, not physical harm. “I get, ‘Dear Mr. Slanderer,’ a lot, she says with a laugh. “I’m like, if you’re going to threaten me, at least get the legal term right if you want me to take you seriously. It would be libel. Then again, I’m very careful.”

Baltimore Slumlord Watch’s impact hasn’t just been limited to Charm City, either. It helped spur similar projects in Columbus, OH, and Richmond, VA. New York City’s elected public advocate, Bill de Blasio, launched a “Worst Landlords” list online in August 2010. Slumlord Watch has also received attention from the Columbia Journalism Review and the American University Center for Social Media.

Ott doesn’t view herself as a journalist, however. If pressed, she describes her blog as documentary photography and herself as a housing advocate. A photographer who has exhibited other work, Ott’s blog has garnered fans among Baltimore’s street artists, who also recognize the heartbreaking loss—and glimmer of potential—in Baltimore’s vast vacant housing stock, officially estimated at 16,000 homes. The street artists known as Gaia, who curated the recent Station North Open Walls Baltimore project, and Nether, a ubiquitous 23-year-old muralist, both reached out to Ott though Slumlord Watch. A recent collaborative project links Nether’s vacant-home murals to information about the houses on Slumlord Watch via an accompanying wheat-pasted QR code.

“I think it’s the visual/confrontational side of the blog that attracted street artists,” Nether says. “Our idea is to use these beat-up vacants, too, which we see as beautiful houses with lots of history, make people stop and look, and maybe imagine the possibility of something different again in the neighborhood. Street art and public art is about social change, and Carol’s very passionate and interested in the same thing. She’s definitely stirred up a lot in me.”

In terms of the City of Baltimore’s efforts to deal with the long-simmering vacant housing crisis, Ott doesn’t place much faith in the much-talked about Vacants-to-Value initiative, which aims to streamline the sale of city-owned vacant properties for rehabilitation. Scale-wise, it’s not significant enough to make a dent, Ott believes, also suggesting many “V2V” homes are targeted by investors. A Republican, Ott views her work as apolitical, or at least non-partisan. “I vote, that’s about it,” she says, adding she prefers neighborhood, action-oriented solutions to politics. Which is not to say that she’s not mindful of the history, politics, and lending and real-estate practices that splintered city neighborhoods, particularly as segregation fell. Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City, by former Sun reporter Antero Pietila sits on her living room shelf. Ott, whose employment background includes working for architectural and construction firms as well as nonprofits, has read it several times and remains engrossed in local and national housing issues.

“From what I gather, she’s very much self-taught [regarding housing issues], and I do think the blog has been successful in bringing awareness to a subject that needs more people’s attention,” says Robert Strupp, executive director of Baltimore Neighborhoods, Inc. “All of us in the housing arena certainly—city government officials, elected leaders, as well as housing advocates, industry people and other stakeholders who are making decisions about these neighborhoods—benefit from looking at the real challenges. I support what she’s doing wholeheartedly.”

Matt Hill, an attorney who works on tenant rights and housing issues at Baltimore’s Public Justice Center, communicates regularly with Ott, often seeking assistance from Slumword Watch to get the word out about housing issues, hearings, and legislative initiatives. “I am amazed at the depth of her knowledge and always eager to talk to her about the issues,” Hill says, adding he’s always happy when their interests overlap. “Every time I need help at the grassroots level, I go to her to see if it’s something she supports, and use the blog to reach people.”

Ott is in favor of reviving something similar to the city’s early-1980s “dollar house” program. She also supports Habitat for Humanity’s hands-on approach. But true to her nature, she also cannot help but point out on her blog the irony in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health owning vacant homes. (It should be noted, two years after her blog post, work on the highlighted Hopkins-owned block has begun.)

Like others, she believes, Baltimore will have to raze a large share of its vacants as other cities are doing, and replace them with green space, “shrinking” the city, so to speak. However, she adds, it’s not as cheap or easy a solution as it may seem with vacant homes often scattered amongst functioning ones. She worries, too, about residents becoming isolated or displaced by redevelopment or gentrification.

Mostly though, Ott concerns herself with the give-and-take with her readers, whether encouraging them to follow-up on a complaint about a troublesome vacant home next door or helping them contact their elected officials. “I love my readers,” she says.

One of her Pigtown neighbors, Mike Bresnan, who has actually never met Ott in person, is one of Slumlord Watch’s biggest fans. Bresnan bought a house on Nanticoke Street in May 2008 and has lived next to a vacant home for more than a year and a half. Recently, he went to court and won a settlement with the landlord over water damages to his house caused by the vacant property.

Ott twice posted photos Bresnan submitted of the gutted, trash-strewn house, noting that the owner’s LLC was not in good standing with the state—meaning they haven’t filed the tax returns for their business.

“I didn’t know what else to do besides call 311. She was a huge help in tracking down information, and she was the one who told me who the owner was and advised me,” Bresnan says. “I love the blog. There’s a bunch of vacants in my neighborhood, and nobody else even seems to care or know what can be done.”

It’s Friday morning rush hour at The Park School of Baltimore, as sunlight—and students—stream into the lower-school lobby. With the school day about to begin, the mood is something akin to “rope drop” (or opening hour) at Disney World, as an eager crowd of students waits for the clock to strike 8:10 a.m., the time they are first allowed down the hallway into their classrooms. To bide time, two students play a game of one-handed catch; another student helps second-grade teacher Deborah Silverman fill bags for the monthly Viva House food donations; still other students inch down the hallway while Patti Steinberg, administrative assistant and ad hoc keeper of the gate, holds the crowd at bay. “I always have my crew of kids who ask, ‘How much longer?’” laughs Steinberg.

Third-grader Leo Meltzer has the morning shift down to a science. “We get excited about the day,” he explains, smiling. “We are supposed to walk down the halls, but sometimes we run. I usually fast walk to get to my class.”

From her room, third-grade teacher Ann Starer, has witnessed the early morning stampede for her past 13 years at the Brooklandville school nestled on 100 acres just off Old Court Road. “Some people try to hold them back,” says Starer, “but I see it as beautiful. They are literally racing and bursting into the rooms. They can’t wait to get there.”

Kids who love school so much they need to be contained from rushing to class? That’s one for the books, and somewhere, Hans Froelicher Sr.—who co-founded the school 100 years ago—is surely smiling.

From the outset, The Park School took a revolutionary approach to education, distinguishing itself from other area independent schools with an emphasis not only on reading, writing, and arithmetic, but on a style of joyful learning that’s still tangible in the school’s storied halls.
“Former headmaster Parvin Sharpless likes to tell a story about a father who came to talk to him, [concerned] about his son,” says upper-school principal Kevin Coll. “The student was having a great experience, so Parvin tried to get at what the problem was. The father said, ‘I just have to tell you, I’m suspicious. Every day my child is eager to go to school.’”

By contrast, a century ago, the traditional approach to education emphasized that “children needed to be made to learn,” writes Jean Thompson Sharpless, author of The Park School of Baltimore: The First Seventy-Five Years (and Sharpless’s wife). But The Park School took a page from a burgeoning Progressive Movement of education—where, in the words of school archivist Michelle Feller-Kopman, “Learning was not forced, but a happy process.”

When it first opened on September 30, 1912—then located in a private mansion across the street from Druid Hill Park (hence the name)—The Park School was one of just a few progressive schools in the country. It was built as a reaction to political corruption (then-Mayor James Preston favored the spoils system) and a lowering of educational standards in the Baltimore public schools, as well as the anti-Semitism prevalent at the time.

“Park was founded because of exclusionary practices in Baltimore,” explains Feller-Kopman. “Jews and Gentile parents were unhappy with the school system, and they started to look elsewhere, but the Jewish parents didn’t have [many] alternatives in Baltimore.”

The school was formed by raising $100,000 in 10 days from stock certificates and through a meeting held at the all-Jewish private club for men, The Phoenix Club. It was there that they ironed out the final details of the mission of Park School, “a co-educational institution . . . which will absolutely ignore religion, leaving that strictly to the home training,” according to a March 26, 1912 article in The Baltimore Sun.
“We were pushing social barriers,” says director of upper-school admissions Ruthie Sachs Kalvar, who graduated from Park in 1985. “For Jews and Gentiles to be educated together was a really progressive notion for Baltimore back then.”

Decades later, in June of 1954, Park made Baltimore history again: Under mounting pressure from the student body, the board voted to “receive application from any family suitable in interest or ambition,” making Park the first independent school in Baltimore to admit African-American students as well. (Though Brown v. Board of Education ended segregation in public schools in May 1954, the law did not apply to private schools.)

Veteran Park history teacher and lacrosse coach Stephen “Lucky” Mallonee, who attended Park’s kindergarten in 1949 and graduated in 1962, reminisces about those tumultuous times. “I don’t recall the students having any problem here,” says Mallonee. “But I do remember a bunch of Park students eating at [The White Coffee Pot] with Wilhelma Garner, one of the first African-American students on campus. The story goes that the waitress came over and said, ‘We don’t serve black people,’ and she said, ‘I’m not black, I’m Hawaiian.’ At the end of the meal, the waitress came over and said, ‘You’re the first Hawaiian we’ve ever served.’ And Willie said, ‘There will be more.’”

Pick a random day of the week to visit, and it’s hard not to notice that, true to Park’s roots, the school is still breaking new ground. It’s visible in the surrounding woods, where the school became one of the first in the country to include a student-designed Outward Bound–style challenge course; in the parking lot, where students in an automotive physics class drive a moped they’ve refurbished; and the hallways, where students seem to spill out and do everything from study plant life in the Arctic for an upcoming school trip to play the guitar.
Indeed, it’s in the classes and hallways of Park that the school’s educational ideals truly flourish.

“It is not untrue that you will find kids lying in the hallways when you walk by,” says Pete Hilsee, director of communications. “But they’re not talking about SpongeBob. They’re talking politics, science, and math. They’re collaborating, they’re speaking in groups, and looking at primary sources.” Upper-school English teacher Howard Berkowitz puts it another way: “We’ve given these kids freedom . . . If you put limits on kids then they hit those limits and that’s it. They own their education here. It’s not imposed [on them].”

Dan Paradis became headmaster at Park in 2008, in part, he says, because “Park is known as an academic powerhouse.” He used to bristle at the widely-held notion that students “run the school.” After all, that’s his job. But now he’s proud students play such a strong role. “Student voices matter at Park.,” he says.

Senior Abi Colbert-Sangree concurs. “I feel like I can have an impact at Park,” she says. Case in point: When Colbert-Sangree attended a student diversity conference last January, she learned about gender diversity, which inspired her (and others) to create a gender-neutral bathroom. “A population of kids at Park do not feel safe, due to their gender identity,” says Colbert-Sangree. “We thought that a simple way to improve their school life would be to convert a bathroom at Park to an ‘anybody’s bathroom.’” Colbert-Sangree and her cohorts met with teachers, wrote petitions and letters, and attended school faculty meetings to help make their plan a reality. The result: a men’s bathroom was converted to a gender-neutral bathroom this summer.

Senior Hannah Block echoes Colbert-Sangree’s sentiments. “I switched from Owings Mills High School my junior year,” says Block, “because I wasn’t getting the education I wanted. I love how involved we get at Park, I love that our teachers ask us what homework seems appropriate at the end of a class, I love that we are asked what we think.”

Alix Spiegel (Class of ’89), an award-winning NPR science reporter and founding producer of This American Life, is one of many in a long list of accomplished Park graduates (among them: Tom Rothman, CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment, theoretical physicist Edward Witten, who invented superstring theory, and Manfred Guttmacher, the first forensic psychiatrist in the country and key witness at the Jack Ruby trial).

Spiegel says she remains indebted to the school she attended for 13 years. “They value critical thinking and individuality and that’s what has carried with me,” she says. “The intellectual curiosity that Park encouraged has helped me in my current job. They cultivated the sense that we live in this really interesting world that is full of possibility, and that has stuck with me to this day.”

Still, despite its roster of famous graduates, not all students are so anxious to get out there and make their mark on the world: “At Park, I’m excited to go to class and for all the things we do,” says Block. “I’ve asked my mom if I can fail this year so I can stay for another year! I’m not sure they’d like that, but I know I would.”se

Marc Broady, a young, dapper employee of the city school system, visited The Center Club for the first time in 2008 to support a friend participating in a Baltimore magazine “Top Singles” event. He was so impressed by the upscale club that he decided to join. He liked the idea of belonging to a private bar and restaurant, and the many opportunities to network with influential club members. As Broady took in the panoramic view from the club’s 16th floor that evening, he had little knowledge of The Center Club’s history—that the club’s founding members played a crucial role in creating a vibrant downtown and tourist attraction. Broady, now 32, also knew nothing of his own family’s pivotal role in making The Center Club the first private business club in Baltimore to accept African-Americans and Jews.

When Broady told his aunt about joining the club, she gave him some surprising news: “I think your grandfather was the first black member.”

And, indeed, Broady’s grandfather, the late Judge Robert B. Watts, was the first African-American to join The Center Club shortly after it opened 50 years ago in 1962. As one of the city’s first African-American judges, he had worked alongside Thurgood Marshall as a civil-rights lawyer. He was a universally well-liked man, making him an ideal candidate to integrate the new club.

It was a time when many Baltimore restaurants and movie theaters were still segregated and when the city’s venerable private men’s clubs, like the Merchant’s Club and the Maryland Club, banned Jews and permitted blacks only if they worked as waiters.

Today, The Center Club is preparing to celebrate its anniversary with a week of events, leading up to a gala on November 3, to thank its members “for 50 years of diversity.” And Marc Broady’s legacy will be part of it. He is one of The Center Club’s Young Members Committee, recruiting new members and finding ways to keep the club vibrant.

The story of The Center Club begins with a man named Clarence W. Miles. He had a dream for revitalizing the city long before Walter Sondheim became the dean of Baltimore civic leaders, before William Donald Schaefer became the four-term, do-it-now mayor, and before James W. Rouse was hailed an urban visionary.

Miles founded the law firm of Miles & Stockbridge and was the first president of the Baltimore Orioles after he brought the team to town in 1953. He was a tenacious civic leader who helped found the University of Baltimore and got the Civic Center built. He persuaded complacent business leaders to form the Greater Baltimore Committee in 1955 to begin reviving downtown’s Charles Center.

Then came the idea for a new private downtown business club, where Baltimore leaders in business, law, and government could meet on common ground, no matter their race or religion.

Up until then, African-Americans and Jews were shut out of the city’s power circles.

“People who ran the Maryland Club ran the city,” recalls Gilbert Sandler, a Center Club member and longtime Baltimore writer and historian. “That was where the power really was.”

Miles joined six other men to incorporate the new Center Club on May 10, 1962. “I was personally convinced that a certain amount of controversy would arise because it was so widely rumored in business circles that the club’s membership would be racially non-discriminatory,” Miles wrote in his memoir Eight Busy Decades: The Life & Times of Clarence W. Miles, co-edited by The Sun columnist Jacques Kelly in 1986.

In practice, the new club’s policy meant that Jews would be accepted immediately. (In fact, one of the seven founders was Joseph Meyerhoff, the real-estate developer and Jewish philanthropist.) When to invite African-Americans to the club, though, was a trickier decision.

The club needed an infusion of cash from as many new members as possible, but Miles knew that some people would drop out if they knew they would be dining with African-Americans.

Of the club’s founders, only one is still living. Truman Semans ran the investment-banking firm of Robert Garrett and Sons in 1962 and is now vice chairman of Brown Advisory.

“I don’t want to say we were great do-gooders or revolutionaries, but it was important,” he says. “The city was becoming less segregated.”

There was one particular member of the board of governors whose opinion held great weight: Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, president of The Johns Hopkins University and adviser to U.S. presidents (including his older brother, Dwight D. Eisenhower), who strongly urged the club’s board of governors to invite African-Americans to join, says Howard Miller, The Center Club’s current president.

Whether pressure from Eisenhower led to the first African-American’s application for membership by the spring of 1963 is not known, but Watts’s application was sent in April to Robert Weinberg, a member of the club’s board of governors and a partner of the Weinberg and Green law firm. After Weinberg’s death in 1995, the document was archived with his other files in The Jewish Museum of Maryland.

Once Watts was accepted, other prominent members of the African-American community began joining, including Martin Jenkins, president of Morgan State College; attorneys George L. Russell and Larry Gibson; Afro-American newspaper executive Kenneth O. Wilson; and Henry G. Parks Jr., chief executive officer of H.G. Parks and a member of the Baltimore City Council.

While the club’s leadership understood the importance of racial integration, their attitude did not necessarily extend toward women. As the founders discussed their non-discrimination policy, there was no talk about asking women to join, Semans says. But members’ wives and female guests were welcomed, with one caveat: At lunchtime, women were segregated in a separate dining room in the club’s first home at One Charles Center. The main dining room was considered sacred ground for men to conduct business and dine without female companionship. For dinner, however, the main dining room was open to women.

Meyerhoff, who was the club’s president from 1964-74, worried that most women would spend too much time at lunch and monopolize the tables. “Dad was concerned there wouldn’t be enough tables for the men,” says his son, Harvey (Bud) Meyerhoff.

This rule caught some members’ wives by surprise. Betty Lewison was taken aback when she was steered away from the main dining room. She and her husband, Dr. Edward Lewison, were charter members of the club. Dr. Lewison, who died in 2008, was an internationally known breast-cancer surgeon who founded The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s breast clinic.

They joined the club “because it was going to be open to everyone,” Betty Lewison says. “We approved of the idea. It was an honorific thing to belong to The Center Club at the beginning.”

When the couple went to the club for their first lunch, “It became apparent that we had to lunch at the informal dining room because I was a woman and was not allowed in the formal dining room . . . if someone tells me I’m no longer an equal person, I see red,” says Lewison, still miffed 50 years later.

She went home, cut up her membership card, and never went back for lunch until women were treated the same as the men at the club.

By 1971, the club was accepting individual women as members. Baltimore businesswoman Ruth Shaw, who was designing and manufacturing women’s tennis clothing from a one-room studio on Howard Street, needed a place to meet business associates for lunch, so she joined.

“I went in, and they said, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t allow women in the dining room.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ I went to the bar and was told I was not allowed in the bar. I’m paying the same amount but have no use of all the facilities,” she says. “I was taken aback. I asked for my money back, and they refused.”

That April, Shaw filed suit against The Center Club with the help of local lawyer Elsbeth Levy Bothe. Judge Kenneth C. Proctor (a former Center Club member) ruled against them, noting that the case “is not a civil-rights or women’s-liberation case” because The Center Club was a private organization, according to an article in The Sun.

Shaw went on to operate the Ruth Shaw clothing boutique in the Village of Cross Keys for 35 years. Bothe would serve as a Baltimore Circuit Court judge for 18 years.

The ladies dining room was finally abolished in the mid-1970s after a Center Club officer visiting a similar club in Los Angeles discovered women eating in the main dining room at lunch with no apparent disruption to their male counterparts. It wouldn’t be long before the club banned women from wearing pantsuits. But that, too, would pass, as would the exclusively male leadership at the club.

Many Center Club charter members were also founding members of the Greater Baltimore Committee, considered in its time to be a progressive business group for spearheading the city’s downtown renewal. They were instrumental in building Baltimore’s first truly modern office tower, completed the same year The Center Club was founded, and designed by the internationally known architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

At 24 stories, the tower went up at the corner of North Charles and Lexington Streets. The sleek design attracted The Center Club’s leaders, who chose to locate the club on the top floor of what was called One Charles Center. In the club’s early years, The Center Club’s dining room was often teeming with businessmen at lunchtime. “In those days, there were six major banks, and almost every loan officer belonged to The Center Club. We might have had 20 members from Equitable, 35 members from Maryland National,” says Miller.

“If somebody wanted to borrow money, even if you lived in Towson, or on Liberty Road, you came downtown. If you came downtown at 11 in the morning, the loan officer would bring you to The Center Club for lunch. You could tell who was borrowing money by who was eating lunch at The Center Club.”

The Center Club soon became known for its restaurant and expertly prepared food. It’s still a place where diners can order a dish that’s not on the menu without fazing the chef and where signature dishes come from recipes that are decades old. The service is stellar, too. A charming maître d’ remembers your name and doesn’t seat you too close to your business competitors, or your boss. He never asks if you prefer plain water to Pellegrino. He remembers.

John Warnack, the club’s COO, calls this talent “the hospitality gene.” “We start over every day,” he says. “There is the pressure of sustained consistency—or a level of hospitality—from the food, the way we answer the phone, the way we have someone’s coat waiting for them.”

The current chef, Robert Bannon, upholds long-held culinary traditions as the keeper of many Center Club dishes, like the Maryland crab soup he’s been cooking for 15 years. He learned it from the previous chef, who made it for 30 years.

Likewise, the recipe for the club’s crab cakes (ordered by more than half the diners daily) never changes. Banquet chef Wolfgang Wolff has been making them consistently for 16 years with 15 pounds of jumbo-lump crabmeat each day.

Ethel Berney, whose late husband, Hamburger’s department store executive Robert Berney, was a charter member, fondly remembers the gourmet food she found nowhere else in Baltimore. The original menu included items like kangaroo-tail soup and baba au rhum.

“They always made you feel more welcome than they should have,” she says of the staff.

Today’s club, now located on Light Street with sweeping views of the Inner Harbor, has 2,000 members and has evolved from an exclusive men’s luncheon venue to a club with a variety of special “intraclubs” for members who want to brush up on their Spanish, hear guest speakers with expertise on Baltimore history or the evolution of women executives, or take tango lessons. There are also popular wine tastings, fashion shows, and happy hours.

In 2003, the club elected Phyllis Brotman its first woman president. Brotman, CEO of Image Dynamics, a public-relations firm, led an effort to transform the club—both physically and socially—with a $2.7 million renovation to the main 15th floor.

Now, The Center Club’s future is in the hands of young members like Broady, who has already brought in several new members from diverse backgrounds to join the club. He also hopes to recruit nonprofit leaders to network with business executives who have access to private donations for charitable causes.

But more than anything, he wants to focus on the original mission of The Center Club as a place where people of all backgrounds feel comfortable.

“I would like to continue that charge,” he says.

This article was adapted from a book by Joan Jacobson, commissioned by The Center Club for its 50th anniversary.

Sure, the current job market remains frustrating for many recent college graduates, but the long-term benefits of earning a college degree are clear: Over the course of a lifetime, college graduates can expect to earn almost twice as much as those with high-school diplomas. And in today’s increasingly digitized, engineered, and information-based global economy, the importance of a college degree—and advanced degree—continues to grow. Successful engineering, computer science, and nursing majors, for example, are in demand, yet many well-paying positions go unfilled because they’re aren’t enough qualified candidates. However, with college costs rising dramatically and a greater share of the financial burden borne by students themselves, choosing the right college becomes ever more critical. With all this in mind, we researched 13 local colleges and universities, digging for relevant data and interviewing school officials, current students, and recent graduates, to create our “insider’s guide” for students and parents considering local schools for the next step up the education ladder.

Coppin State University – Baltimore

Founded: 1900 President: Reginald S. AveryEnrollment: 3,300 undergraduates Tuition and fees: $5,732 Room and board: $8,549 Housing:50% of freshmen live on campus Student body:24% male/76% female Diversity: black: 87%; white: 2%; non-resident alien: 4%; unknown: 5% SAT average: reading and math combined: 850Acceptance rate: 53% Student-to-faculty ratio:16:1 Freshman retention rate: 64% Graduation rate: 4-year: 5%; 6-year: 15% Most-popular majors:psychology, criminal justice, nursing Most-popular grad programs: family nurse practitioner, rehabilitation and counseling, human service administration.

On Campus: Coppin State University is most widely known for its Helene Fuld School of Nursing. The school was also the first University of Maryland System school to go completely wireless. This fall, Coppin will break ground on its new science and technology building and offer the only bachelor’s degree in the state in health-information management.

Coppin added new educational and recreational programs in 2010 with the opening of its 246,000-square-foot sports complex. The new Physical Education Complex is designed to support Health and Human Performance academic programs, varsity and recreational sports, and the school’s community-outreach efforts. The $136-million project includes a 4,100-seat basketball arena, NCAA regulation pool, softball and soccer fields, fitness center, auxiliary gym, dance studio, racquetball and tennis courts, faculty and staff offices, laboratories, and state-of-the-art classrooms.

Nickname: Eagles School colors: old gold and reflex blue Organizations: 31, including Love You Like A Sister, Student Volunteer Corps, nine sororities and fraternities Sporting life (non-varsity): flag football, basketball, volleyballVarsity: known for basketball; competes in NCAA Division I Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Culture:Department of Natural Science’s Ernest Just/Percy Julian Lecture Science Series Favorite class:makeup application for the performing arts On-campus hangout: Austin Grill Off-campus hangout: Mondawmin Mall Cheap eats: J & G Jamaican American Carryout Can’t-miss party:February’s Homecoming Step Show Freshman tip:Take advantage of new rec facilities and activities.Alums: Stephanie Ready, first female coach in men’s professional basketball; Bishop L. Robinson, first African-American police commissioner of Baltimore City; Verda Welcome, first African-American woman in the U.S. elected to a state senate.

Goucher College – Towson

Founded: 1885 President: Sanford J. UngarEnrollment:1,446 undergraduates Tuition and fees: $37,072 Room and board: $10,864Housing: 86% of all students live in college-affiliated housing Student body: 33% male/67% female Diversity: white: 63%; black: 10%; Hispanic: 6%; Asian: 4%; international: 2%; Native American: 1%; unknown: 14% SAT average: reading and math combined: 1139 Acceptance rate: 73% Student-to-faculty ratio: 9:1 Freshman retention rate:81% Graduation rate: 4-year: 62%; 6-year: 70%Most popular majors: psychology, communications, business management Most popular grad programs:education, teaching, post-baccalaureate pre-medical.

On Campus: The bucolic 287-acre campus tucked just inside the Beltway nurtures experimentation, often leading to interesting post-graduate endeavors. (To wit: The Baltimore Rock Opera Society is the brainchild of Goucher grads.) The college’s artistic and literary disciplines are stellar, with the Creative Writing Program drawing particular attention for its high-profile faculty, including husband and wife scribes Madison Smartt Bell and Elizabeth Spires. The dance program is another standout. Goucher president Sanford “Sandy” Ungar has also pushed the college to embrace a global perspective, instituting the nation’s first study-abroad requirement.

A flurry of building activity in recent years has given Goucher the facilities to match its ambitious programs. Most notable is the recently opened $48-million Athenaeum, which houses classrooms, an art gallery, radio station, cafe, library facilities, and meeting and exercise spaces.

Nickname: Gophers School colors: blue and goldOrganizations: more than 60, including Student Government Association; Red Hot Blue, a cappella group raises money for AIDS/HIV nonprofits; Humans vs. Zombies Sporting life (non-varsity):ultimate Frisbee, flag football, racquetball Varsity:19 sports, including equestrian; competes in NCAA Division III Landmark Conference Culture:President’s Office Speaker Series brings politicians, scientists, and media luminaries to campus to speak about current events Favorite class: Any foreign-language class that offers inter-semester trips to the mother country On-campus hangout:residential quad Off-campus hangout: Loch Raven Reservoir Cheap eats: Towson Diner Can’t miss party: spring’s Get Into Goucher, aka GIGFreshman tip: Leave your car at home and utilize campus Zipcars Alums: Sally Brice-O’Hara, vice admiral and vice commandant, United States Coast Guard; Emily Newell Blair, League of Women Voters founder; Laura Amy Schlitz, author and Newbery Medal Winner.

The Johns Hopkins University – Baltimore

Founded: 1876 President: Ronald J. DanielsEnrollment: 5,066 undergraduates Tuition and fees: $43,930 Room and board: $13,390Housing: 99% of freshmen live on campusStudent body: 53% male/47% female Diversity:white: 52%; black: 5%; Asian: 20%; Hispanic: 9%; non-resident alien: 9%; two or more races, non-Hispanic: 4%; unknown: 2% SAT: 25th/75th percentiles: reading: 640/740; math: 670/770; writing: 650/750 Acceptance rate: 18% Student-to-faculty ratio: 13:1 Freshman retention rate:96% Graduation rate:4-year: 85%; 6-year: 92% Most-popular majors: biomedical engineering, public health studies, international studies; Most-popular grad programs: computer science, electrical engineering, physics.

On Campus: Consistently ranked among the very best national universities, Hopkins opens the four-story Brody Learning Commons this fall. The new building will be a light-filled, completely wireless hub, connecting to the school’s Milton S. Eisenhower Library on all levels. It will feature interactive media rooms, a 100-seat reading area, an atrium, 75-seat cafe, and will increase the library’s seating capacity by one-third—with 500 additional new seats. The building will also house the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts, a new laboratory, and instruction space for the Department of Preservation and Conservation.

The university’s Whiting School of Engineering broke ground in the spring for Malone Hall, a state-of-the-art, 69,000-square-foot research center. Scheduled to open in the summer of 2014, Malone Hall will serve as the focal point for Hopkins’s individualized health initiative, bringing together researchers from the engineering, medicine, nursing, and public health schools to develop the best medical treatments for individual patients.

Nickname: Blue Jays School colors: Columbia blue and black Organizations: 370, including 22 fraternities and sororities, Center for Social Concern, Hopkins Organization for Programming Sporting life (intramural): flag football, wallyball, 3-on-3 basketball Varsity: national men’s and women’s lacrosse programs; other varsity teams compete at NCAA Division III level Culture: Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium Favorite class: Acting classes taught by John Astin (The Addams Family)On-campus hangout: “The Beach,” grassy area in front of library Off-campus hangout: all over Charles Village Cheap eats: Carma’s Cafe Can’t miss party: Three-Day Spring Fair Freshman tip:studying in the Hutzler Reading Room (the Hut), Gilman Hall Alums: Russell Baker, writer; Rachel Carson, ecologist and author; Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States.

Loyola University Maryland – Baltimore

Founded: 1852 President: Rev. Brian F. Linnane, S.J. Enrollment: 3,863 undergraduates Tuition and fees: $42,426 Room and board: $9,116Housing: 98% of freshmen live on campusStudent body: 39% male/61% female Diversity:white: 81.85%; black: 4.19%; Asian: 2.9%; Hispanic: 6.78%. other: 4.28% SAT: 25th/75th percentiles: reading: 540/640; math: 560/650 Acceptance rate:63% Student-to-faculty ratio: 13:1 Freshman retention rate: 89% Graduation rate:4-year: 79%; 6-year: 83% Most-popular majors: business, communication, biology Most-popular grad programs: business administration, pastoral counseling/spiritual care, school counseling, clinical psychology.

On Campus: Formerly Loyola College in Maryland, the school was officially renamed in 2009. School president and Jesuit priest Brian Linnane’s goal is to make Loyola the nation’s “leading, Catholic, comprehensive university.” The Ridley Athletic Complex, a $64-million soccer and lacrosse stadium, was completed two years ago. A $12-million addition to the Donnelly Science Center, completed last August, features, among other things, a microscopy center and a robotics laboratory. New minors in forensic studies and African and African-American Studies have recently been added. In addition to academics, roughly 60 percent of the school’s undergraduate body participates in service work through the on-campus Center for Community Service and Justice. Nearly 65 percent of students study abroad through one of Loyola’s sponsored programs or an accepted unaffiliated program. One highlight from last year: The men’s lacrosse team won the NCAA Division I lacrosse championship.

Nickname: Greyhounds School colors: green and gray Organizations: More than 150, including OPTIONS (social alternatives to drinking), Student Government Association, Relay for Life Sporting life (non-varsity): flag football, basketball, volleyball Varsity: Men’s lacrosse won NCAA Division I title last year; most varsity teams compete in NCAA Division I Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Culture: The Modern Masters Reading Series brings national and international writers to campus. Favorite class: Intro to Dance, where students choreograph end-of-semester performances On-campus hangout: Humanities Building porch Off-campus hangout: Roland Park Bagel Cheap eats: Chipotle Can’t-miss party: Loyolapalooza Freshman tip: Student Center’s third-floor Reading Room remains open late.Alums: Tom Clancy, novelist; Jim McKay, former host of Wide World of Sports; Frank Cashen, former New York Mets general manager.

Maryland Institute College of Art – Baltimore

Founded: 1826 President: Fred Lazarus IVEnrollment: 1,865 undergraduates Tuition and fees: $39,340 Room and board: $10,880Housing: 94% of freshmen live in college-affiliated housing Student body: 28% male/72% femaleDiversity: white: 55%; black: 5%; Asian: 12%; Hispanic: 4%; non-resident alien: 8%; unknown: 9%; multi-race: 8%; Native American: 0.3% SAT average: reading: 602; math: 571; writing: 592Acceptance rate: 54% Student-to-faculty ratio:10:1 Freshman retention rate: 85% Graduation rate:4-year: 65%; 6-year: 71% Most-popular majors: illustration, graphic design, painting Most-popular grad programs: business of art and design, studio art, graphic design.

On Campus: One of the leading art colleges in the country, the construction (scheduled to be completed by fall 2013) of Commons II, a new residence hall, will increase the capacity of the freshman-residential complex from approximately 350 to 590 students. In addition to the construction of the new building, renovations to the existing complex will include an expanded entrance lobby and co-curricular programming spaces for students. There are three new undergraduate concentrations: game arts, sound art, and sustainability and social practice. The MICA Graduate Studio Center at 131 W. North Ave. is in its final stages of construction and will re-open this fall. The century-old former JoS. A. Bank factory has served as a home for grad students for 12 years, and the renovation will make the building—with newly expanded galleries, cafe, and academic activity—an integral part of the Station North Arts & Entertainment District.

Organizations: More than 50, including Urban Gaming Club, Black Student Union, Students of Sustainability Sporting life (non-varsity): indoor soccer, volleyball, ultimate Frisbee Varsity: no varsity teams Culture: spring fashion shows and MFA Thesis Exhibition are among the highlights Favorite class: Puppets and Prosthetics On-campus hangout: Café Doris Off-campus hangout: The Windup Space Cheap eats:Pizza at Two Boots Can’t-miss party: Halloween costume party Freshman tip: Buddha statue is a quiet gathering spot. Alums: Jeff Koons, sculptor; Michael Owen, Love Project muralist; Gaia, street artist.

McDaniel College – Westminster

Founded: 1867 President: Roger N. Casey Enrollment: 1,600 undergraduates Tuition and fees: $35,800 Room and board: $8,010 Housing: 95% of freshmen live on campus Student body: 48% male/52% female Diversity: white: 73%; black: 13%; Asian: 4%; Hispanic: 7%; Native American: 1%; Unknown: 2% SAT averages: reading: 553; math: 553 Acceptance rate: 74% Student-to-faculty ratio: 12:1 Freshman retention rate:84% Graduation rate: 4-year: 70%; 6-year: 73% Most popular majors:psychology, exercise science and physical education, biology Most-popular grad programs: curriculum and instruction, counselor education, BEST Initial Teacher Certification.

On Campus: Technology has been a focus of President Roger Casey, who is active on both Twitter and Facebook, since assuming leadership at McDaniel two years ago. He created the new position of director of digital communications and social media. As part of a pilot program in the fall of 2011, 15 first-year students received an iPad2 for use in a three-course curriculum.

This fall, McDaniel launches a new master’s degree in public administration and a graduate certificate in romance writing established with a grant by the Nora Roberts Foundation—both offered entirely online. McDaniel also has received approval to offer a new major in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies.

Earlier this year, the school broke ground on an $8-million stadium project, and the college is also in the process of renovating Hoover Library, which will include academic learning spaces.

Nickname: Green Terror School colors: green and gold Organizations: more than 100, including Asian Community Coalition, Canine Companions for Independence, eight fraternities and sororities Sporting life (non-varsity): flag football, golf, kickballVarsity: 24 teams compete in NCAA Division III Centennial Conference Culture:Common Ground on the Hill, celebrating 18 years Favorite class: South Park and Contemporary Issues On-campus hangout: Casey’s Corner coffee shop Off-campus hangout: Birdie’s Cafe Cheap eats: Harry’s Main Street Grille Can’t-miss party: Annual Spring Fling Freshman tip: Don’t miss tailgating before football team takes field to original Star Wars theme Alums: Thomas Roberts, MSNBC anchor; Greg Street, “World of Warcraft” game designer; Frank Kratovil Jr., Maryland congressman

Morgan State University – Baltimore

Founded: 1867 President: David Wilson Enrollment: 6,711 undergraduates Tuition and fees: $7,012 Room and board: $8,878 Housing: 25% of all students live on-campus Student body: 42% male/58% female Diversity: white: 3%; black: 85%; Hispanic: 3%; multi-racial: 3%; other: 6% SAT average: reading and math combined: 909 Acceptance rate: 56% Student-to-faculty ratio: 12:1 Freshman retention rate: 73% Graduation rate:4-year: 13%; 6-year: 30% Most-popular majors: business, electrical engineering, nursing Most-popular grad programs: social work, engineering, urban educational leadership

On Campus: Morgan State University is one of the few historically black institutions offering a comprehensive range of academic programs in business, engineering, education, architecture, social work, and hospitality management, including 14 doctoral degree programs. This fall, the school will open the Center for the Built Environment and Infrastructure Studies, a 125,000-square-foot, $67-million facility housing the research and academic programs in architecture and planning, transportation and urban infrastructure studies, and civil engineering. Morgan ranks second among all campuses in Maryland and among the top 25 campuses nationwide in the number of doctorates awarded to African-Americans. Morgan will launch two new master’s programs beginning this fall in hospitality management and professional accountancy. University students led the fight for civil rights in Baltimore, and Morgan hosts annual Black History Month and Women’s History Month lecture series, bringing notable African-American activists, writers, and entertainers to campus.

Nickname: Bears School colors: blue and orange Organizations: 77, including S.M.O.O.T.H. (Strong Men Overcoming Obstacles Through Hard Work), National Council of Negro Women, nine fraternities and sororities Sporting life (non-varsity):basketball, tennis, softball Varsity: 14 teams compete in the NCAA Division I Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Culture: The Morgan State University Choir ranks among top university choral ensembles in the country. Favorite class: History of Morgan StateOn-campus hangout: McKeldin Center Cyber Cafe Off-campus hangout: Inner Harbor via Collegetown shuttle Cheap eats: Sunny’s Subs Can’t-miss party: Sigma Sweat Party Freshman tip: Avoid “Bridgeology 101,” (Hanging out on Coldspring Lane Bridge). Alums: Robert Mack Bell, chief judge Maryland Court of Appeals; Monique Angela Imes, Academy Award-winning actress; William C. Rhoden, The New York Times columnist.

Notre Dame of Maryland University – Baltimore

Founded: 1873 President: James F. Conneely Enrollment: 1,290 undergraduatesTuition and fees: $29,850 Room and board: $10,150 Housing: 53% of all students live in college-affiliated housing Student body: 5% male/95% female Diversity: white: 67%; black: 22%; Asian: 4%; Hispanic: 2%; unknown: 3% SAT average: reading: 533; and math: 509 Acceptance rate: 55% Student-to-faculty ratio: 12:1 Freshman retention rate:75% Graduation rate:4-year: 49%; 6-year: 61% Most-popular majors: nursing, business administration, education Most-popular grad programs: education, nursing, pharmacy

On Campus: Earlier this year, the Notre Dame of Maryland University Board of Trustees chose James F. Conneely, as the new school president. Conneely is the first man and only the second lay person in the school’s 117-year history to serve as Notre Dame’s president. Conneely succeedes Mary Pat Seurkamp, who retired after a 15-year tenure.

This fall, Notre Dame breaks ground on a new 38,000-square-foot academic building for the School of Nursing and School of Education. Designed to meet LEED certification in keeping with the university’s commitment toward sustainability, the facility will feature a lobby, student hub, gallery, and study space, as well as clinical laboratories and medical simulation labs.

Nickname: Gators School colors: royal blue and white Organizations: 32; including Omega Phi Alpha, a community-service sorority, Student Activities Board, Student Environmental Organization Sporting life (non-varsity): pick-up volleyball, soccer, and softball Varsity: Notre Dame fields eight NCAA Division III women’s teams Culture:Gormley Gallery displays the works of local and national artists Favorite class: Homer to Star Wars: The Epic Tradition in Western Literature On-campus hangout: Gator Lair Off-campus hangout: The Avenue in Hampden Cheap eats: Evergreen cafe Can’t-miss party: Winter ball Freshman tip: Do homework and meet new friends at Gator Alley. Alums: Dr. Susan Love, breast cancer surgeon; Mary Corey, The Baltimore Sun director of content; Eileen O’Neill, group president at Discovery and TLC networks.

Stevenson University – Owings Mills and Greenspring Valley

Founded: 1947 President: Kevin J. Manning Enrollment: 3,575 undergraduatesTuition and fees: $23,636 Room and board: $11,422 Housing: 43% of freshmen live on campus Student body: 33% male/67% female Diversity: white: 66% black: 19%; Asian: 3%; Hispanic: 2%; unknown: 9% Acceptance rate: 63% Freshman retention rate: 79% Graduation rate: 4-year: 45%; 6-year: 62% Student-faculty ratio: 16:1 SAT average:reading: 492; math: 499; writing: 488 Most-popular majors: health professions, business, visual and performing arts Most-popular grad programs: forensic studies, nursing leadership, business and technology management

On Campus: Stevenson, formerly known as Villa Julie College, has been boosting male enrollment and overall enrollment—up each of the past 14 years. Last fall, Stevenson purchased the former 28-acre site of Shire Pharmaceuticals for $10.5 million. The newly acquired property includes two buildings totaling 168,000 square feet, serving as the new location for much of the university’s School of the Sciences and School of Design. Earlier this year, Stevenson announced new master’s programs in cyber forensics and health-care management and a newly approved bachelor’s degree in fashion merchandising. Additionally, the school recently added a varsity football program, playing in a new $12-million field on campus—also home to its lacrosse, field hockey, and varsity soccer teams. The women’s varsity ice-hockey squad, the NCAA’s southern-most women’s team, begins play this year.

Nickname: Mustangs School colors: green and white Organizations: 48, including Phi Sigma Sigma, a service group of college women; Phi Beta Lambda, a fraternity of future business leaders; Wilderness and Ecology Club Sporting life (non-varsity):ultimate Frisbee, basketball, volleyball Varsity: 22 teams compete at NCAA Division III level, mostly in the Capital Athletic Conference Culture: Stevenson’s Baltimore Speakers Series in 2012-2013 opens with Bill Clinton Favorite class: Science & Science Fiction—Where Films Get It Right and Wrong Freshman tip: Don’t schedule Owings Mills and Greenspring campus classes back-to-back. On campus hangout: Jazzman’s CafeOff-campus hangout: NY Pizza Co. & Italian Bistro Cheap eats: The Flying Avocado Can’t Miss: Mustang Fest Alums: Martha Scanlan Klima, former Maryland delegate; Chris Tsakalos, part owner H&S Bakeries; Marc Bunting, owner of Alpine Bagel Co. and professional race car driver

Towson University – Towson

Founded: 1866 President: Maravene Loeschke Enrollment: 15,590 undergraduatesTuition and fees: $7,906 Room and board: $9,942 Housing: 85% of freshmen live on campus Student body: 40% male/60% female Diversity: white: 67%; black: 12%; Asian: 4%; Hispanic: 3%; unknown: 10% SAT average: reading: 540; math: 547; writing: 546Acceptance rate: 57% Student-to-faculty ratio:17:1 Freshman retention rate: 83%Graduation rate:4-year: 43%; 6-year: 73% Most-popular majors: business administration, education, social sciences Most-popular grad programs: information technology, human resource development, teaching.

On Campus: Founded as Maryland’s first teacher’s college, Towson still produces more teachers than any other university in the state. However, with 64 undergraduate majors and 45 graduate programs, the school’s mission and size—it’s the second-largest university in the state—continues to grow.

Last fall, the first new academic building on campus in more than 30 years, the 293,00-square-foot College of Liberal Arts Building, was constructed. In the spring of 2013, a new 5,200-seat multi-use arena facility, complete with state-of-the-art video screens and entertainment suites, will open.

The school’s “Towson Unplugged” wireless system remains one of the largest wireless networks in the Baltimore metro area, spanning the university’s 328 acres and campus residence halls. Parkville-native Maravene Loeschke, an alumna and former Towson professor, took over as president this year after previously leading Pennsylvania’s Mansfield University.

Nickname: Tigers School colors: black, gold, and white Organizations: 240, including Sports Club Council, 29 fraternities and sororities, Black Student Union Sporting life (non-varsity): soccer, basketball, beach volleyball Varsity: 20 teams compete at NCAA Division I level, mostly in the Colonial Athletic Conference Culture: 400 performances, exhibits, films, and lectures annually at campus Center for the Arts, other venues Favorite class: The “Colbert” course, aka Popular Culture and Politics: Comedy, Entertainment, Celebrity, and Democracy On-campus hangout: “The Beach” outside Cook Library Off-campus hangout: Recher Theatre, Towson Diner Cheap eats:Towson Hot Bagels Can’t miss party: Tigerfest Freshman tip: Go to Burdick [the gym]. Freshman 15 is real! Alums: Catherine Curran O’Malley, associate judge, First District Court of Maryland, First Lady of Maryland; Brian Stelter, The New York Times journalist/blogger; Charles S. Dutton, actor.

University of Baltimore – Baltimore

Founded: 1925 President: Robert L. Bogomolny Enrollment: 3,257 undergraduatesTuition and fees: $8,664 Room and board: UB does not provide housing Housing:84% increase in students living in midtown in recent years Student body: 42% male/58% female Diversity: white: 46%; black: 35%; Asian: 4%; international: 2.5%; Hispanic: 2%; unknown: 8% SAT average: verbal: 501; math: 480; writing: 484Acceptance rate: 58% Student-faculty ratio: 20:1 Freshman retention: 86%Graduation rate:N/A Most-popular majors: business administration, criminal justice, simulation and digital entertainment Most-popular grad programs: business, public administration, publications design.

On Campus: For three decades, UB was as an upper division-only institution, plus its graduate and law schools. The University System of Maryland school began accepting freshmen and sophomores in fall 2007 and has been functioning as a four-year university since. Three years ago, The Fitzgerald at UB Midtown luxury apartment complex was built on university-owned property and now serves as home to community members and students—as well as the school’s Barnes & Noble bookstore. This fall, The Varsity at the University of Baltimore, an 11-story, privatized student-housing project opens as more students move to housing within walking distance of the campus. The UB campus has grown significantly in the last few years, expanding its campus facilities by 150,000 square feet, with another 322,000 square feet, including a new law center, under construction.

Nickname: Bees Colors: blue and green Organizations: 67, including Digital Designer Guild, Black Law Student Association, Criminal Justice Association Sporting life (non-varsity): flag football, disc golf, billiards Varsity: No varsity teams Culture: Spotlight UB series features music, art, theatre, dance Favorite class: pop culture minor offers “zombies” course On-campus hangout: Student Center Starbucks Off-campus hangout: Charles Street cafes, restaurants, late-night pizza shops Cheap eats: Oriole Pizza Can’t-miss party: Annual block party Freshman tip: Catch the BeeBall Classic, the annual student-faculty hoops match Alums: William Donald Schaefer, former Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor; Peter Angelos, Baltimore Orioles’ chairman of the board and CEO; Tom Condon, NFL agent.

University of Maryland Baltimore County – Catonsville

Founded: 1966 President: Freeman A. Hrabowski III Enrollment: 10,573 undergraduates Tuition and fees: $9,467 Room and board: $10,142 Housing: 72% of freshman live on campus Student body: 54% male/46% female Diversity: white: 48.6%; black: 16%; Asian: 21%; Hispanic: 5%; non-resident alien: 4%; two or more races, non-Hispanic: 3%; unknown: 2% SAT: 25th/75th Percentile: reading: 540/640; math: 570/670; writing: 530/630 Acceptance rate: 61% Student-to-faculty ratio: 20:1Freshman retention rate: 85% Graduation rate:4-year: 37%; 6-year: 57% Most-popular majors: social sciences, computer science, biological sciences Most-popular grad programs: education, information systems, computer science, electrical engineering.

On Campus: Known as a commuter school a decade ago, UMBC has raised its status in recent years. President Freeman A. Hrabowski III and the school were profiled on 60 Minutes last year and U.S. News & World Report named UMBC top “up-and-coming” national university for a third consecutive year. Scheduled to open this fall, UMBC’s new Performing Arts and Humanities Building (PAHB), located on 4.8 acres, will provide state-of-the-art facilities. The building will enhance UMBC’s teaching, research, and public outreach, and increase the visibility of the arts and humanities as major academic components on campus. The PAHB will be home to the departments of ancient studies, dance, English, music, philosophy, and theater, as well as the James T. and Virginia M. Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Humanities Scholars Program, and the Linehan Artist Scholars Program.

Nickname: Retrievers School colors: black and gold Organizations: 231, including 26 fraternities and sororities., Game Developer’s Club, Swing Dance Club Sporting life (non-varsity): co-ed flag football, indoor soccer, dodgeball Varsity: 19 teams compete in NCAA Division I America East Conference Culture: Center for Art Design and Visual Culture Favorite class: Social Psychology and Belief in the Paranormal On-campus hangout: The Commons game room Off-campus hangout: Habibah Cafe Cheap eats: Sorrento of Arbutus Can’t miss party: Spring Quadmania Freshman tip: Wear UMBC clothing to bookstore on Fridays for discount Alums: Jon S. Cardin, state delegate; Duff Goldman, Ace of Cakes owner; Kathleen Turner, actress.

University of Maryland, College Park – College Park

Founded: 1856 President: Wallace D. Loh Enrollment: 26,826 undergraduatesTuition and fees: $8,908 Room and board: $9,893 Housing: 93% of freshmen live in college housing Student body: 53% male/47% female Diversity: white: 56%; black: 12%; Asian: 15%; Hispanic: 8%; unknown: 3% SAT: 25th/75th percentile scores: reading: 580/680; math: 610/720 Acceptance rate: 44% Student-to-faculty ratio: 18:1Freshman retention rate: 94% Graduation rate:4-year: 65%; 6-year: 82% Most-popular majors: criminology, economics, accounting Most-popular grad programs: business and management, public policy, electrical engineering

On Campus: The University of Maryland College Park serves as the state’s selective flagship university, and new infrastructure projects include Oakland Hall, the first residence hall to open since 1982. The new student dorm features semi-suites, consisting of mostly two, two-person bedrooms connected by a shared bathroom. The building is environmentally sustainable and includes a large lobby, indoor bike storage, lounge, laundry facilities on every floor, study rooms, and a 24-hour service desk. Coinciding with the opening of Oakland Hall was the completion of the 251 North dining hall, a renovated, all-you-can-eat diner. In January 2010, the university opened the new $30-million home for the school’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. In May 2010, ground was broken on a $128-million, 158,068-square-foot Physical Science Complex, which will include 18 prep labs, 27 laser and condensed-matters labs, eight bio-physics labs, and 12 conference rooms. It’s scheduled for completion next summer.

Nickname: Terrapins School colors: red, white, black and gold Organizations: 842, including 52 fraternities and sororities, Black Student Union, Student GovernmentSporting life (non-varsity): flag football, basketball, soccer Varsity: 20 varsity teams, most compete in NCAA Division I Atlantic Coast Conference Culture: 318,000-square-foot Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center houses six performance venues Favorite class: History of Rock ‘n’ Roll, 1950-2000 On-campus hangout: “McKeldin Mall,” grassy area at McKeldin Library Off-campus hangout: Plato’s Diner Cheap eats:Marathon Deli Can’t- miss party: Saturday football tailgates Freshman tip: Find your classes before the first day—this is a huge campus. Alums: Jim Henson, Muppets creator; Kevin Plank, Under Armour founder; Sergey Brin, Google co-founder.

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Getting To Graduation:

College presidents monitor graduation rates. Politicians talk about boosting graduate rates. So, should parents and students care about graduation rates? Yes. Of 4.3 million full-time freshmen entering college in the fall of 2004, roughly half had not reached graduation through 2010, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education study.

Obviously there are enormous costs—requiring loans, part-time jobs, and college savings—incurred to pay for two or four extra semesters of tuition and associated expenses, like housing and books. But what about the nearly 40 percent who never receive a diploma?

“For those who don’t graduate, it becomes a very costly waste of time and money,” says Donna Hamilton, associate provost and dean for undergraduate studies at the University of Maryland College Park, which graduates 65 percent of freshmen in four years and 82 percent in six years. “There are a lot of good reasons to go to college, but our mission is to award degrees. Four years is the gold standard. That should be the expectation.”

What holds students up?

A million things, Hamilton says. Sometimes it’s financial (a parent unexpectedly losing a job), homesickness or depression, or it’s social, failing to plug into campus life. Or it could be academic, failing to take advantage of campus resources for assistance. Working too many hours at an off-campus job often interferes with academic progress as well.

Often, it’s simply a failure to plot a course to graduation with an adviser and stick to it.

Changing majors, studying abroad, and internships may delay matriculation, but those are not necessarily bad things, Hamilton notes. But there are general rules students and parents can follow to ensure timely matriculation. Working a campus job tends to be better, for instance, than working off-campus. (An on-campus boss is more likely to understand a student needs time off during finals.) And anything more than a 20-hours-a-week job is considered too much for a full-time student.

Students also need to find a campus community. Join a club or two, in other words.

Parents shouldn’t force majors on students. Eventually, they’ll switch anyhow and likely lose time toward a degree, Hamilton says. If a freshman can’t decide on a major, Hamilton suggests narrowing the possibilities down to three options and having an adviser chart a course that will allow a student to look at all three without losing time toward graduation.

Required courses can fill up quickly, so students also need to work with advisers on getting required classes completed in order. Getting to know the faculty helps, Hamilton adds. They’re able to help select courses and garner internships (which lead to real jobs). Also, students struggling with emotional or psychological issues should seek assistance immediately as colleges generally offer free counseling to full-time students.

The bottom line, says Hamilton, is that students ultimately need to take responsibility for getting to graduation day. “At some point, they’ve got to decide, ‘I want a degree and I’m going to do whatever it takes to get there.’”

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Around The State

Other four-year, bachelor-degree-awarding colleges and universities in Maryland.

Bowie State University – Bowie

Founded: 1865 Enrollment:5,600 About:Maryland’s oldest historically black institution of higher learning and one of the oldest in the country, Bowie State is a diverse university with 23 majors, 35 master’s programs, doctoral, and advanced certification courses.

Frostburg State University – Frostburg

Founded: 1898 Enrollment:5,429 About:Frostburg is the only 4-year University System of Maryland school west of the Baltimore-Washington corridor.

Hood College – Frederick

Founded: 1893 Enrollment:1,485 About:A longtime women’s liberal-arts school located in Frederick, Hood became a fully co-education institution a decade ago.

Mount St. Mary’s University – Emmitsburg

Founded: 1808 Enrollment:1,676 About:The country’s second-oldest Catholic university, Mount St. Mary’s rural campus offers more than 40 majors, minors, concentrations, interdisciplinary and special programs.

Salisbury University – Salisbury

Founded: 1925 Enrollment:8,000 About:Salisbury offers more than 40 undergraduate degrees in it’s Fulton School of Liberal Arts, Henson School of Science & Technology, Perdue School of Business, and Seidel School of Education & Professional Studies.

Sojourner-Douglass College – Baltimore

Founded: 1972 Enrollment:1,100 About:The downtown school offers 18 bachelor degree programs and several graduate programs.

St. John’s College – Annapolis

Founded: 1696 Enrollment:450 About:St. John’s College’s undergraduate program features an all-required course curriculum based on the great books of Western philosophy, theology, political science, physics, math, and history.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland – St. Mary’s City

Founded: 1840 Enrollment:1,992 About:St. Mary’s College of Maryland is a public, state-supported, liberal-arts honor school, offering 22 undergraduate degree programs, including a student designed option.

United States Naval Academy – Annapolis

Founded: 1845 Enrollment:4,603 About:The U.S. Navy’s undergraduate college develops students into naval officers, whose tuition is fully funded in exchange for active-duty service upon graduation.

University of Maryland Eastern Shore – Princess Anne

Founded: 1886 Enrollment:3,862 About:A historically black institution, UMES offers 34 undergraduate-degree programs, 14 graduate programs, and seven doctoral tracks.

Washington College – Chestertown

Founded: 1782 Enrollment:1,450 About: Located on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, an hour and a half from Baltimore and Washington, D.C., Washington College, one of the 10 oldest in the nation, offers more than 40 majors and academic programs.

How familiar were you with Ocean City before you were cast as Rodney?

I was really familiar from my youth. I was born in Columbus, OH, and my family used to vacation there. Then, after my parents’ divorce, my dad moved to the Eastern Shore, and I lived with him from the time I was 9 or 10 until I was 11 or 12.

What do you think separated you from the pack during casting?

I grew up on the ocean. It’s really been my calling. So once I went in there, I just rocked casting. I have a lot of energy. It kinda radiates out of my aura, and I felt that they were, like, beach people—more in tune with Mother Earth, you know?

Do you have any actual life guarding experience?

I did some minor pool life guarding when I was in college but it wasn’t really, like, ocean patrol.

Did you actually film in Ocean City?

Yes, but we were on a very tight time schedule so they could only keep me out there for a day or two. But the commercials were so funny and over the top, it was just a real pleasure.

What are some of your favorite things to do in OC?

It’s always Thrasher’s fries. I’m always trying to be healthy—I’m primarily a vegan now—but I really like Thrasher’s fries. And the sunsets are always the most beautiful.

Do you ever get recognized?

Yeah, I love it! My favorite time was when I was walking down the street, and I had just taken off my shirt. I play tennis, and a little child was watching me playing, and, as I’m walking away, this kid goes, ‘Are you him?!’ It took me a second, because I had just played two hours of tennis but I was like, ‘Dying from boredom? Not on my watch!’ [Rodney’s catchphrase]. And he was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you are!’ He just ran back to his parents. It was so funny.

What is today’s Ocean City like compared to the Ocean City you remember?

It’s amazing how the place improved so much in just a decade. I’m just really proud that if you go to OC you don’t feel like its some old beach town, yet you still get the fact that there’s a large amount of history there.

What is your personal favorite summer vacation memory?

I can remember a time when I was seven years old, and I was sitting on the Ocean City beach, and I was watching the sunrise. I was just so young, and I knew nothing of anything in the world besides the purity of the waters, the sun, the sand, and the love of my parents. I would play in the sand and collect these little shells. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do with all these shells, but I used to want to get them before the other kids could. I’d always run out there first thing in the morning and get as many shells as I could. I’d always have to carry them all the way back to my mom. I’d be like, “Look!” It’s kinda funny.

So, you’re not really a lifeguard, but are you a strong swimmer?

Oh my god, yes. I’ll tell you how strong I am: I always wished there was a little island I could swim to and have my own little island, you know? So I looked back through history and learned that there are man-made islands. Well, I made an island, literally the size of a living room, 15×15, and it sat in the water like a lily pad. I made this down in Wilmington, NC, and my goal was basically to make it like a barge and haul it up and down the coast and put, like, a cool advertisement on it from commercial property. Well, one day, the island broke during a big storm and I just had a premonition that something was in trouble, I get in the car in the middle of a storm and drive down there to find my island getting washed off in the ocean and instead of saying goodbye to it I jumped in, tied a rope to my waist, and swam against the current with a barge attached to me. Even the Coast Guard pulled up beside me and said, “We’ve never seen anything like that!”

Wow, that’s dangerous, I’m surprised you survived.

I mean worst-case scenario, I let go of the cord, but I have strong survival instincts.

Anita Allen was about five years old when her big brother, Alton, a student at Baltimore City College, came home in his marching-band uniform.

“I remember him wearing that big top hat and playing the saxophone, and I thought that was just so cool,” she says. A few years later, when Alton became the first of Allen’s 15 siblings to graduate from college, she thought, “I need to go to that high school.”

But although Anita Allen was among the best students in Northern Parkway Junior High School, and lived on Gorsuch Avenue, just a few blocks from City, attending Baltimore’s most prestigious high school was not an option. Since its founding in 1839, Baltimore City College, known as “the Castle on the Hill,” had always been an all-boys school.

And then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

The school closed in 1977 for a year of renovations, and the students moved to district headquarters on North Avenue. It re-opened in the fall of 1978 (even though renovations weren’t quite complete) as “the New Baltimore City College,” a co-educational high school. The girls and boys in the freshman class would have the school to themselves.

“Once they opened up the doors for females, I knew that was my opportunity and I had to get in,” says Allen, née Hill, who left her junior high school (which, like most at the time, went through 9th grade) a year early to join Baltimore City College’s class of 1982.

This month, Allen joins her fellow class of ’82 members to celebrate their 30th reunion. The class is notable both for being the first to include women, and for its stellar achievements, particularly among the women.

Veronica Jones-Freeman, the class president and the first female member of City’s Hall of Fame, is a finance manager for McCormick Company and has been the treasurer of the trustees of the Baltimore City College scholarship funds for more than a decade. Maria Price Detherage is the director of strategic programs for the Department of Health and Human Services. Deneen Fassett is a United States Postmaster in Baltimore County. Allen herself studies technology and is now a manager at Shield Consulting Solutions. Doctors, lawyers, and university administrators are all also among the class’s graduates.

From the first days of freshman year, it was clear that the women of the class of 1982 were uniquely ambitious, in everything from academics and extra-curricular activities to sports. Top achievers in middle schools and junior high schools throughout the city, they finally got the chance to shine at Baltimore’s most prestigious public historic high school—and they were determined to take advantage of it.

“From our moment of entry, we felt like this was an opportunity,” says Allen, who inspired a younger sister and brother to attend City, along with her daughter, Monet, who graduated in 2007, and her son, Phillip Allen III, who just finished his sophomore year there. “We knew that anything the women of our class did, it would be a historic moment.”

Neil Bernstein graduated from City in 1954, and has been active in the alumni association ever since. He first met the class of ’82 in the fall of 1978, when they were spending their freshman year in the basement of Eastern High School, the all-girls school near City, while the renovations were being completed.

To mark its 25th reunion the following year, the class of ’54 decided to give several $100 prizes to the top academic performers in the class of ’82, and Bernstein came to announce them to the students at an assembly.

“When I met those ladies and gentlemen, it was so refreshing to see how much they wanted to be there,” says Bernstein, who has served as president of the alumni association. “They came into a new environment, it was a co-ed school for the first time, they were in that basement, and yet they were excited.”

The move to make City co-ed came after a period when the future of the school was in doubt. There was a feeling that City had slipped in stature in the ’60s and early ’70s. The school board discussed making City a neighborhood school or shutting it down.

“The school system wanted the building taken down,” says Bernstein. “Allegedly, [Mayor] William Donald Schaefer and [Governor] Marvin Mandel, both City alumni, said ‘You ain’t gonna do that.'”

In addition to concerns about the quality of education, there was a national trend of integrating single-sex schools. A school board task force ultimately recommended that the school be shut down for renovations and re-opened as a co-ed magnet school.

“If they’d re-opened the school with inmates from Devil’s Island, I’d have been deliriously happy,” says Bernstein. “The fact that this wonderful school, which motivates people to incredible achievement, could be re-opened, I didn’t care who would be going there, as long as they were qualified to be college-preparatory students in a magnet school. The fact that it was co-educational didn’t make a difference to me.”

Bernstein helped convince alumni—some of whom were adamantly opposed to the change—to continue supporting their alma mater.

“The feeling was, if Western can stay all-girls, how come City can’t remain all-boys?” he recalls. “I said, ‘Here’s what we got: no school or some school with women. What’s your choice?’ We were just happy to get the school open with kids that wanted to be there.”

Over the years, Bernstein has watched with great pride as the class of ’82 proved to be one of the school’s most successful.

“I don’t know whether we put something in the water or what, but the ladies in that class—the gentlemen, too, but particularly the ladies—seemed to respond to what City College is all about,” he says. “Whenever I hear about a woman graduate doing something special, I say ‘Must be class of ’82.'”

In 1977, Deneen Fassett was an ambitious middle-school student who had planned to go to either Poly or Dunbar, until she heard that City was going co-ed.

“School was the priority in my house,” says Fassett, who grew up in Northwest Baltimore and took two buses to get to City. “When City announced that it would be co-ed, my mind was settled. The selling point was that we would be the first graduating class of ‘the new City,’ where girls would be allowed.”

Steve Williams, another class of ’82 grad and the current president of the Baltimore City College Alumni Association, says the school’s decision to go co-ed was pivotal to him as well. “That was one of the selling points: You can go to the Castle on the Hill, but now there’s going to be females,” he says. “New and improved, guys.”

Like a lot of aspiring athletes that went to City, Williams was also lured by the opportunity to participate in one of America’s great high-school football rivalries: the annual City-Poly game, which was played, usually on Thanksgiving, at Memorial Stadium until 1999. (It’s now played at M&T Bank Stadium.)

Williams keeps up a good-natured war of words with Baltimore Polytechnic Institute alumni. He refers to Poly as “that other school on Falls Road,” explaining with a smile, “I don’t curse, so I don’t use that other word.”

Unfortunately for its football squad, when the class of 1982 entered City, there were no upperclassmen, so they were forced to field teams with students from just a single class, taking on older, bigger, and more experienced opponents.

“We took our lumps,” says Williams, who was City’s starting quarterback for four years, and was also point guard on the basketball team and a pitcher for the baseball team. For all four of Williams’s years at City, Poly defeated them in the annual game. “It was tough, but we hung in there,” he says.

Even in sports, the girls of City outperformed the boys. The brand-new girl’s volleyball team faced the same challenges as the boys teams and, yet, it went undefeated for four straight years, winning four citywide titles. “We were proud,” says Anita Allen, who played on the team and was voted “most athletic” and “most versatile” in her senior year.

Class of ’82 grad David Johnson was also lured by the football program. “It sounded really cool to be able to play in a professional football venue on Thanksgiving day,” he says.

Spending freshman year in the basement of Eastern, among the girls attending the neighborhood school, proved to be as demanding as any contest on the gridiron. “They were some rough young ladies—big and tall, and I don’t think they were all that happy that we were there,” says Johnson. “We were the nerdy kids.”

But soon enough, the students moved into the newly renovated building. “It was like going to a brand new school,” says Fassett. “That was the best.”

Every subsequent year, a younger class joined the school, but the class of ’82 was always the oldest, the perennial “seniors.” Johnson, who is now academic director of web media and technology at University of Maryland, University College, thinks their status helped them mature, and taught them how to handle great responsibility.

“We grew up a little faster and made our own way,” he says. “We forged our own identity, and we were always looked up to.”

When the school re-opened in 1978, it also started with an almost entirely new faculty. Susan Legg had been teaching English in the Baltimore City Public Schools for a few years when she joined City that year.

“We were excited to be there,” says Legg, who still works at City as director of testing. “It was like a new school, new faculty—only one teacher was held over from the previous faculty—and it was an intellectually stimulating environment.”

Legg recalls the criticism of City before it closed down, in particular that it had “gotten away from its standards.” But, like Neil Bernstein, she was relieved to find that the new students were motivated to learn.

“They were good students,” she says. “They took a risk and came into something totally new. For most of them, it paid off.”

Class of ’82 grads say their unique situations—being the first co-ed class, the first in the renovated building, the oldest class for four years—helped them form and maintain a lasting bond. “We’re like a family, more than a class,” says Johnson.

Steve Williams joined the military after graduation and connected with alums around the globe, even while in Iraq.

“I saw the class ring from a distance in the chow hall—it was unmistakable,” says Williams, who retired from the military several years ago and now works in the human resources department of The Johns Hopkins University. “We got to talking the next day, remembering the school.”

To this day, Anita Allen distinctly remembers going up the tower at City to write her name on the wall that all City graduates sign, knowing that she would be among the first women to be entered there.

“You could see all of Baltimore from up there,” she says. “That was truly awesome.”

On a clear, crisp March day, Officer Christopher Davies prepares the second floor of a long-abandoned building at Rosewood State Hospital to go to the dogs—or, more specifically, to the Baltimore County K-9 unit.

Earlier in the day, Davies had signed out dangerous controlled substances stored in a safe at Essex headquarters (many of which were seized during local drug busts) as well as an arsenal of explosives acquired through the State Fire Marshal’s Office. Now, as if preparing for a dangerous scavenger hunt, Davies plants plastic Zip-Loc baggies of heroin, hashish, meth, and explosive compounds such as R5 and PETN in various hiding places around the floor. The hash goes on a shelf in the bathroom; the heroin gets stashed in a room behind closed doors; the meth is hidden inside the receiver of a telephone that sits on top of a desk area.

“It’s like a game of hide and seek,” explains Davies. “That’s all we do out here all day.”

First to arrive on the scene is the team of 4-year-old German shepherd Bosco and his handler, Sergeant Daniel Buchler, a former lacrosse player dressed in County-issued navy cargo pants with Oakley sunglasses on top of his head and a 40-caliber sig (pistol) strapped to one leg. Bosco, with his bear-sized paws, is equally formidable—at 99 pounds, he is one of the K-9 unit’s larger animals and, like many of the canines, is a dual-purpose dog trained in explosives and patrol work.

Bosco sniffs his way across the floors of the empty, tiled hallways while Buchler eggs on his shepherd with words of encouragement.

“Let’s get the bad guy. Let’s get the bad guy,” he says.

As Bosco sniffs, Buchler guides the dog through the halls, running his hands along the walls. When Buchler points to a paper-towel holder in a bathroom, Bosco stands gracefully on his hind legs and shoves his snout along the edge of the dispenser. Suddenly, Bosco’s breathing shifts from a steady pant to a more excited one. “He’s easy to read,” says Buchler. “You can hear his breathing change as he inhales.” Bosco takes a whiff, spins around, and then offers his “final response”—”a sit,” which is what he’s been trained to do once he locates the explosives. Buchler retrieves the R5 shoved up in the dispenser and praises Bosco for a job well done. “Good boy. Good boy,” he repeats, tossing Bosco his Kong chew toy reward. “He’s a foam monster,” says Buchler as he beams at the sight of his drooling dog who appears to be foaming at the mouth. “Yes, he is.”

For decades now, police dogs (thought to have originated in Belgium in 1859) have been widely employed throughout the United States, although in the wake of 9/11, they’ve become an increasingly common tool used against terrorism, especially for explosives. And Baltimore has benefited. Thanks to a federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security in 2010, Baltimore County received six Suburban SUVs for the unit. (They’ve since tricked the Suburbans out with a customized HVAC “hot-dog” system to keep temperatures just right for the dogs who often have to wait in cars before their officers bring them out to sniff around.)

Even before the events of 9/11, the Baltimore area was ahead of its time in using man’s best friend to assist the men and women in blue. Founded in 1956, Baltimore City’s unit is thought to be the oldest in the country with Baltimore County and the Maryland State Police units—both founded in 1961—not far behind. (Baltimore County has a relatively large unit for the state, with 25 handlers, one bloodhound, four Labradors, and 23 German shepherds.) As of today, Maryland has a K-9 unit in almost every county.

It was the Baltimore County K-9 Unit that presided over Obama’s visit to Towson University in 2011 and guarded the perimeter of a Dundalk row house during the 2000 fight-to-the-finish standoff with spree killer Joseph Palczynski. Throughout the Old Line State, the K-9 units patrol our streets, our malls, and our airports. They are called to the scene during armed robberies or when citizens are lost or on the lam.

According to Lieutenant Stephen Troutman, top dog of Baltimore County’s K-9 Unit, his team handled 6,600 calls for service last year (in Baltimore County and beyond), which led to 129 apprehensions. Though, interestingly, Troutman notes that “the mere presence of a dog is such a powerful deterrent” that of those 129 apprehensions, only 25 times was a dog actually directed to bite.

Yes, the dogs are trained to bite, but using force is a last resort. And this reflects a certain shift in policy. In the “olden days,” explains Maryland State Police Corporal Rick Kelly, “These dogs were known as ‘alligators on a leash.’ Nationally, that’s how it was done. We’d say, ‘You have five seconds to show yourself before you get bitten.’ Those days are over—now, we ‘play fair’ and give one-minute warnings. When a dog is present, that’s often enough for people to turn themselves in.”

But it’s not just their bite that makes them an effective tool against crime. Simply put, dogs can do things that humans cannot.

“They can sweep a stadium with 40,000 to 80,000 people,” says Sergeant Eric Fogle, unit commander of the Maryland State Police’s Special Operations Division. “Or [inspect] a school with 1,000 kids that’s been shut down because of a bomb threat, or seize 39 kilos of cocaine. It’s hard to put a price on what they do. It’s immeasurable.”

Police canines are genetically blessed super soldiers of sorts. For starters, their olfactory senses can be up to “40 to one hundred times stronger than humans,” says John Pearce, associate director of the Canine Detection Research Institute at Auburn University where scientists have proven that dogs can smell 10 to 50 particles (that’s the size of something so small it could fit on a pinhead) per one trillion particles. In many cases, dogs have superior hearing, eyes equipped for night vision, and the ability to run up to 30 mph. In other words, dogs may be man’s best friend, but they can be a bad guy’s worst nightmare.

“As human beings, I don’t think we could genetically create something that would be a better tool for the tactics that we do,” says Davies. “If we sat back and said, ‘We are going to create an excellent tool for law-enforcement search and rescue, companion work, and public service, and let’s figure out how were going to do it,’ the first thing we would say is, ‘Let’s make sure he’s very stable—let’s give him four legs. Let’s make sure he’s very strong and can withstand the elements, so let’s give him fur and muscles everywhere.’ And as you went along with your list, you’d probably say, ‘That looks a lot like a dog.'”

Back at North Point’s headquarters in Essex, Steve Troutman is the guy who reads all the reports, deals with the litigation (Troutman can cite chapter and verse on seemingly every legal ruling involving K-9 dog bites), and oversees everything from the veterinary calls (because the work is so physical, it’s not uncommon for dogs to get injured in the line of duty) to the purchasing of new unit dogs.

“These dogs are living creatures and they become a companion to the [officer’s] family,” says Troutman, sitting in his office near a tiny memorial to Duke, Baltimore County’s first police pooch. “But the dog is still owned by Baltimore County, and is considered ‘equipment.’ It’s difficult to say that because it’s an animal, but it’s really like my handgun and my radio.”

Because of strict breeding standards, strong bloodlines, and a long history of using canines for police work, the “equipment” is most often imported from countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany. And though the price tag can be steep at upwards of $7,000 per dog, canines have proven to be quite cost effective. “One dog team [one cop and one canine] can replace the efforts of five officers,” points out Troutman.

Which is why ongoing training is so essential.

At Rosewood and other area training grounds, the point of the exercises is to expose the dogs—and their handlers—to an infinite number of scenarios they might encounter in the field. “You can never replicate everything that happens on the road,” says Davies, “but we try to be as creative as we can.”

The officers and their dogs go through a 16-week basic patrol school (think agility training, obedience, bite and hold work), plus an additional six-to-eight week “scent training” camp for the dog to learn to detect narcotics or explosives. Beyond that, each team is also required to “retrain” an additional 18 days a year to keep all involved on their paws and toes. It’s one thing to train in a controlled environment, says Troutman, “but the million-dollar question is if you move that task to a different location, from roadside to a ship to the interstate, can they do that simple task you trained them to do? And that’s why we never stop training.”

By the end of boot camp, the dogs and their handlers form a unique working relationship that extends off the job as well.

“Picture being married and being with [your spouse] 24 hours a day,” says Baltimore County Corporal Joe Putnam, who has a narcotics dog named Carbo. “At work. At home. On weekends and whenever you go somewhere—just because I’m off, doesn’t mean he wants to be. All he wants to do is work.”

Occasionally, a dog doesn’t have the right stuff to serve as a police canine, such as Buchler’s yellow Lab, Rusty, who is now happily living out his “retirement” at Buchler’s home. “The Lab is a washout,” laughs Buchler. “He was a bomb trainee who decided he preferred the permanent vacation concept. We got to that fourth week of training, and he just lost interest.”

Not so Buchler’s Bosco, Officer Chris Strevig’s Jett, and Corporal Michael Stricker’s Jack (who was given a set of titanium teeth after chewing through his cage—talk about a crime deterrent), who appear eager and ready to go. First, Davies calls out a series of military-style commands to the handlers, “Halt. Line up on your left. March. Pass your dogs. Leave them down.” Then, their handlers speak to the dogs in a mix of their “native” languages, most often German and Czech. “Sitz (sit), lehne (lay), zustat (stay), propustit (release),” and the dogs follow their every command.

In the ultimate test of canine self-control, Davies dresses as a decoy in a blue “scratch suit.” He comes within inches of each of the handlers and their charges, making sudden movements with his arms and loud cracking sounds with his whip. The dogs seem unbearably tense as they screech and whine, but none of them come within a wet nose of Davies. “He’s doing everything in his power to keep in control,” explains Putnam looking at Jett. “They have to ignore the decoy because the handler is telling them it’s okay.”

During “tug play,” the dogs let loose for a job well done, but Bosco’s tooth inadvertently nicks Buchler’s hand. “Almost all of the handlers have been bitten by their dogs at least once,” says Buchler. “You know what we say as a guy is standing there with two to four holes in his hand bleeding?” asks Buchler rhetorically. “We say, ‘Welcome to K-9.'”

But while dogs such as Bosco are fierce enough to apprehend suspects with a “bite- and-hold” technique usually aimed at the extremities (“Picture the pressure of three refrigerators on top of you,” cracks one of the officers), even more amazing than all the doggie derring-do is their ability to transform from ferocious warriors to beloved family fuzzballs.

“This is how terrible mine is,” laughs Buchler showing a photo of his 13-year-old daughter laying on the floor while hugging Bosco who, mere moments ago, looked like a ringer for Cujo. “On the weekends, he just plays,” says Buchler smiling at his partner. “On the weekends, he’s just a dog.”

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett doesn’t have an entourage.

Almost every morning, around 6 a.m., the 20-year veteran of the House of Representatives, who will turn 86 in June, drives his Toyota Prius three miles from his Buckeystown, MD, farm to his office in Frederick. He shares the small building, which sits between a Chuck E. Cheese and a Wal-Mart, with a pediatric dentist’s practice.

Once there, he usually situates himself in a cramped conference room, reading a packet of clippings from various newspapers that have been compiled by his staff. He meets with constituents, has conference calls, and drives or carpools down to Washington, D.C., when Congress is in session, but always just for the day—he hasn’t spent the night there since he was first elected in 1992.

“The problem now is that your Congress is 90 percent run by professional staff,” says Bartlett, who wears an oversized navy-blue suit with a House of Representatives pin on his lapel. “Congress people have very little skill set. It’s run by faceless bureaucrats. I don’t need to rely on staff.”

In many ways, Bartlett, the second-oldest serving congressman after Texas’s Ralph Hall (who’s 89), is a throwback to an earlier era of citizen-politicians. He didn’t assume office until five years after he retired from a long and varied career that included stints as an engineer with the U.S. space program, the owner of a construction business, a professor at the University of Maryland and Howard University, and a farmer.

As a Representative, he’s let his conscience be his guide. He holds fast to constitutionalist principles of limited government—he keeps a copy of the Constitution in his breast pocket at all times, and quotes from it frequently—but he also has obsessed over issues far outside mainstream political thought, among them “peak oil,” the controversial idea that the global supply of oil is running out. (He founded Congress’s “Peak Oil Caucus,” which now has nine members, including six Democrats). He, along with Newt Gingrich, also frequently warns about the dangers of electro-magnetic pulse attacks on the U.S., which most experts consider far-fetched, and initiated Congressional hearings on the matter.

In general, Bartlett has not been afraid to buck his party’s line on a wide array of issues: He has consistently opposed the death penalty, the Patriot Act, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and describes himself as “far and away the greenest Republican in Congress,” boasting that he was the first person in Maryland—and the U.S. Congress—to buy a Prius.

“I was green before it was cool to be green,” he says. “My construction company was and is the largest home solar-equipment builder in Frederick County. I built 41 solar-powered homes.”

In 1992, Bartlett won his seat in the solidly Republican 6th district—which then included all of Western Maryland and the rural northern parts of Carroll, Baltimore, and Harford counties—by an eight-percent margin. Bartlett went on to win each of his subsequent nine elections by at least 12 percent. The Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI), which predicts the depth of a district’s party leanings, rated the 6th district “R+12” in the last election, meaning that a generic Republican presidential candidate could expect to win the district by 12 points.

But last October, the state legislature wrecked Bartlett’s cozy Republican district. In a plan proposed by Governor Martin O’Malley’s redistricting panel and passed by the Democratic-majority General Assembly, the 6th district lost its rural, right-leaning sections of Frederick, Carroll, Baltimore, and Harford counties, and instead had a large chunk of Montgomery County, including heavily Democratic D.C. suburbs like Potomac, added to it. Democrats officially say that the re-districting was the result of new census data. But it’s widely accepted that state legislatures gerrymander districts to maximize a favored party’s seats.

“It’s not personal,” Bartlett says, with a shrug, of the redistricting. “They just needed another Democrat seat. The Democrats only control, I think, six states and the District [of Columbia]. Republicans control, I think, four times that. So they had to find pick-up opportunities anywhere they could.”

Bartlett may be philosophical about the motivations behind the redistricting, but he’s not naïve about the challenge he faces in holding onto his seat. Since the redistricting passed, Maryland’s 6th district has been one of the most hotly contested races in the country—Congressional Quarterly has named it one of the top-ten most competitive—and will help determine which party has control over the House of Representatives. Money has poured into the district from both national parties, and Bartlett himself has been thrust into the largely unfamiliar role of steadfast campaigner.

“This year has been drastically different than anything we’ve ever had before,” Bartlett says, slouching behind his conference room table. “I mean, we’ve never really even had a professional campaign before.”

The competitiveness of the district has brought new scrutiny to Bartlett and his office. The mustachioed congressman was briefly the subject of ridicule earlier this year when a staff member took seriously a mock bill sent in by a group calling itself “The American Mustache Institute,” that called for a $250 tax deduction for facial hair grooming. The staff member sent the bill on to the House Ways and Means committee, apparently without Bartlett’s knowledge, leading to guffaws around the political blogosphere and attacks from Bartlett’s opponents. State Delegate Kathy Afzali, who challenged Bartlett in the Republican primary, said the situation showed that Bartlett had lost control of his staff and “is out of touch with voters.”

In the primary, Bartlett beat back several challengers, including state legislator David Brinkley, who claimed the Congressman was responsible for an e-mail late in the campaign that included audio of 911 calls related to domestic disturbances at Brinkley’s house (Bartlett denies any involvement in the e-mails). But things could get uglier—and even more competitive—in the general election, where Bartlett faces the Democratic nominee, businessman John Delaney.

Delaney, who founded financial services company CapitalSource, has poured more than a million dollars of his own money into his campaign, helping him soundly defeat state legislator Rob Garagiola, who was favored by the national Democratic party, in the primary. He’s proven to be a smart campaigner, repeatedly touting his proven record as a job creator—a crucial selling point in an economy-obsessed electorate.

“We need new leadership,” Delaney says, echoing the concerns of many in the district who think that Bartlett has been in Congress too long, and that he’s too old to conceive of innovative solutions to a complex set of new issues. “I’m an advocate for infrastructure investment, national energy policy, things that I think are important in leading us into the next generation, and I think there just haven’t been those voices in Congress.”

For his part, Bartlett isn’t looking to update his policy agenda or alter his tried-and-true methods in the face of a new campaign reality.

“We had a campaign consultant who wanted to program me,” Bartlett says. “I said ‘It’s too late!’ I’ve been here 20 years, I’ve been saying all this stuff, I have all these votes—I am who I am. If I’m not electable, I’m not electable, but I am who I am.”

A week before the primary election, Roscoe Bartlett is strolling down Frederick’s quaint East Street. Lined with antique shops, cafes, and boutiques, the block oozes the kind of small-town charm that has made Frederick a tourist destination for weary Baltimoreans and Washingtonians.

Bartlett, having carpooled with co-chief of staff Sallie Taylor, slowly walks toward a restaurant, stopping to greet a few passers-by who recognize him. “Hey, Roscoe,” one man shouts.

Bartlett and Taylor are headed toward Shab Row Bistro and Wine Bar, one of the more swanky establishments on East Street, where Bartlett will speak at a lunch hosted by a senior citizen group. Just inside the door, there is a table with place cards. One reads, “Congressman Roscoe,” and underneath, his choice of entrée, “Ravioli.” There is no punctuation or last name, making it seem that the congressman is the hero in a spaghetti western, Roscoe Ravioli. He even looks the part, with his pointed mustache and swoop of white hair.

“It seems no one around here ever uses my last name,” he says, showing off the place card to chuckling reporters. “It’s okay. I like ‘Roscoe.’ It’s a unique name.”

Bartlett spends a half-hour circling the room, talking to each table of guests. Most are in Bartlett’s age bracket, and health issues are a frequent topic of discussion. At one table, a woman is wearing an oxygen mask because she has emphysema. The congressman details his brother’s health struggles and offers encouragement. At other tables, he spends most of his time listening intently.

After a brief break to eat, the congressman stands up and offers his loose version of a stump speech, which echoes the themes of fiscal and personal responsibility he’s hammered throughout his political career, mixed with folksy anecdotes, tangents, and a sampling of quotes from the likes of Winston Churchill and Thomas Jefferson.

“Government is too big—it spends way too much, it taxes too much, it regulates too much,” he says. “We have wandered a million miles from the government our founders wanted.” He underlines the point by quoting Jefferson: “The government which governs best is the government which governs least.”

Bartlett grew up in Depression-era rural Kentucky, where he attended a one-room schoolhouse and endured extreme poverty. “It really changed my life,” he says. “I decided my kids would not go through what I went through.”

He says his political evolution closely mirrors the quote, often attributed to Churchill, “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative when you’re 40, you have no brain.”

“When I was a kid, I looked around and saw problems and thought, somebody needs to fix this—there are people really hurting,” he recalls. “I looked for some entity that was big and powerful, and it was the government.”

But, a precocious kid, Bartlett said he wised up ahead of schedule. “I wasn’t 20 before I figured out that government wasn’t the solution,” he says. “It finally dawned on me that government doesn’t have any money. They just take or borrow the money. All the government needs to do is make sure that we have the environment that our founding fathers envisioned.”

Bartlett went on to become the first member of his family to graduate from college, with a degree in biology and theology, and came to the University of Maryland, where he earned a master’s degree in physiology in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1952. He married Ellen Bartlett and the couple ultimately had 10 kids, including Joseph Bartlett, who was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates for 11 years. The congressman now has 18 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

In 1961, Bartlett bought his current farm in Buckeystown, and while his career has taken him all over the country, he seems most proud of his work on the farm.

“At one time, I had the largest pure-bred sheep flock on the East Coast,” he boasts, adding that he also had goats and cows, and that, when he was farming full-time, “I personally handled 10,000 bales of hay a year.”

Bartlett’s easy, friendly demeanor and his country background are exactly what have endeared him to the voters in the 6th District for the past 20 years.

“He’s as human as anyone can be,” says Dana Smith, 59, a guest at the Shab Row lunch. “I mean, we’ve seen him in his overalls. You can’t get more real than that.”

And Bartlett’s friendliness extends beyond his constituents. Another way the congressman seems to be of a different era is that he proudly talks about his deep friendships with colleagues on the other side of the aisle. In particular, he’s a close confidante of Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat originally from Baltimore, who has become enemy number one in the eyes of many Republicans. Bartlett calls her “a very committed woman,” and has accompanied her to the last two State of the Union addresses.

“I hate the partisanship,” says Bartlett. “At the end of the day, we want the same things: We want better schools, we want good jobs, we want safe streets, we want a military adequate to defend out country. It’s just that we have very different ideas about how to get there.”

As Bartlett takes questions at his campaign event, it becomes clear that his friendly attitude toward Democrats is not shared by all of his supporters. One worries that after the election, if Obama wins, he’ll order everyone to turn in their guns. Bartlett, a strong defender of the Second Amendment, deflects the question by criticizing gun-control laws.

A woman wonders if tax dollars are going toward the effort to legalize gay marriage. Another supporter suggests that gay people are being given special marriage benefits unavailable to straight people. Bartlett, who is opposed to gay marriage, says it’s primarily a state issue, but claims that, years ago, he first coined the phrase, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” and suggests that legalizing gay marriage may lead to legalized marriage between people and animals.

Bartlett’s peculiar array of positions have allowed him to be the rare GOP congressman on both the Republican Main Street Partnership, a collection of moderate Republicans, and the Tea Party Caucus. “I’m probably the luckiest person in the Congress,” he says. “I vote my conscience. And that, so far, has been okay with the district.”

But observers say Bartlett’s maverick streak might not work in the new 6th District, especially against an outsider like John Delaney.

“His independence probably would’ve helped him more if Rob Garagiola had ended up winning that race,” says Alex Isenstadt, a blogger at politico.com who’s been closely following the 6th district. “It would’ve been easier for him to portray Garagiola, fairly or not, as a creature of Annapolis. Right now, he’s running against John Delaney, who’s an unknown, and it’s going to be harder to brand him as an insider. He’s a job-creator, someone who made millions of dollars in the business sector. It might be harder for Republicans to run against that.”

Lala Mooney is pacing next to her car outside of Frederick County’s Ballenger Creek Middle School. Today is primary day, and Mooney is here to get out the vote for Bartlett, whose campaign stickers cover her bumpers.

“I hope you’ll vote for my guy!” she shouts at voters, as they enter the school gymnasium, and waves two “Elect Roscoe Bartlett” signs.

Mooney, a Cuban-American from Frederick, is the mother of state GOP chair Alex Mooney, who served in the state legislature for 11 years and briefly considered challenging Bartlett for the nomination, but instead threw his support behind the Congressman. Lala Mooney says the redistricting has upset a lot of people in the district and that it motivated her to volunteer for Bartlett.

“It’s been a big issue,” she says. “It’s really skewered the democratic process, eliminating voices that have traditionally been represented.”

She’s confident that Bartlett will pull out the election in November, but admits that the race will be “competitive.” She says local peoples’ resistance to Obama’s agenda will drive them to the polls to vote for Republicans.

“I know that socialism, the way Obama’s pushing it, isn’t going to work,” she says, adding that two Democrats had already told her today that they plan to cross party lines to vote for Bartlett in November. “Government is not going to solve our problems.”

Deborah Lundahl, a local Republican heading out of the polls after casting her vote, agrees with Mooney that the redistricting has upset a lot of people—“it destroyed a rural district, with rural concerns,” she says—but adds that she voted against Bartlett in the primary. “He promised to run for two terms, then step down,” she says. “The longer he stays, the more he seems like just another politician.”

It’s a feeling that seems to have some resonance in the district. Many expected Bartlett to step down after the redistricting and allow a younger Republican to take up the challenge, but he has soldiered on, seeking his 11th term in office.

“It’s going to be a tough race for him,” says Isenstadt, who thinks Delaney will come out on top in November. “It’s tough for a guy in his mid-80s, who’s been around for as long as he has, to run in a new district, let alone one that’s very Democratic.”

Indeed, most analysts now say the district “leans Democratic” and Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call has listed Bartlett among the 10 most vulnerable members of Congress. “It’s possible that all of the ingredients could come together for Bartlett . . . to pull off a win,” they wrote in March. “But it just doesn’t seem plausible at this point.”

For his part, Bartlett says if he loses in November, it’ll give him more time to spend on the farm, where he still keeps a garden and some cows. “We’re trying very hard to get acquainted with the new members of the district,” Bartlett says. “If it doesn’t happen in time for November, so be it. I am who I am.”

On December 2, 2009, and after 21 years as anchor at WMAR-TV, Mary Beth Marsden signed off for one final time at the end of the 6 p.m. newscast.

It was a bittersweet moment for the Emmy Award-winning broadcaster, who, after months of stressful negotiations, had taken a buyout from the ABC affiliate.

While her three children (Jack, now 14, George, now 12, and Tess, now 10) and her husband, Mark McGrath, watched from the wings, she intoned, “Twenty-one years. Fifteen hairstyles—one for every news director,” during a three-minute montage that began with her first story at the station on changes at the Towson Library and ended with her final farewell.

Nearly two years to that day, Marsden sits on a brown velvet sofa in the living room of her storybook Cape Cod-style home in Ruxton and reflects on the end of an era.

“It was a great run,” she says, “but I think you can be someplace too long, and you need to have a change for yourself. I didn’t seek it—it just came down the pike, but it was the right time for me. After the newscast, we all went out to dinner, and I was free as a bird.”

But she was hardly retired. With her newfound freedom, Marsden developed a renewed passion for painting, exhibiting her work at art shows held at L’Hirondelle and Elkridge Country Clubs and even winning an award for her flower paintings at the Maryland State Fair. And in September of 2011, she was hired by WBAL radio to host the Maryland’s News Now With Mary Beth Marsden.

But one mission has been particularly near and dear to Marsden’s heart: In 2002, her daughter, Tess, was diagnosed with PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental delay, not otherwise specified)—a type of autism-spectrum disorder.

“I really didn’t fully accept the name of the diagnosis for years,” says Marsden.

Now, with her time away from the daily grind—and the unyielding spotlight of TV—Marsden was finally determined to do something proactive for her daughter and other kids like her.

When Tess was first diagnosed, Marsden knew very little about autism.

“We knew something was off,” she explains. “At two, she didn’t have two-word sentences, and she would sometimes act out, but autism was way off my chart.”

Marsden and McGrath took Tess for testing at Kennedy Krieger Institute. She remembers observing Tess’s session through a window with Rebecca Landa, the director for the Center of Autism and Related Disorders.

“She said, ‘I believe that Tess is unequivocally on the autism spectrum,'” Marsden says. “And then she went, ‘Blah, blah, blah,’ because I didn’t hear anything else she said. I was reeling. It was one of those moments where the whole world spins off its axis.”

Once she accepted the diagnosis—and she admits it took a long time—she set out to become something of an autism expert. Using the same kind of doggedness that made her a successful journalist, she voraciously read about the condition and consulted with educators, other parents, and experts in the field.

About a year and a half into Marsden’s “retirement,” she came up with an idea for a possible television show. “I knew I wanted to do something with autism,” she says. “My idea was doing a reality show called On the Spec, as in spectrum. I wove in aspects of [Dr. Seuss’s] Horton Hears a Who—it was all the people on the spec in Horton who were all screaming to be heard—so it was a play on that. I had envisioned a whole SuperNanny type of thing for autism. We would take a situation such as a parent trying to potty train his autistic 8-year-old, and try to solve it.”

While the powers that be at a national cable network showed some interest, ultimately autism was deemed a downer as far as programming was concerned.

“It got as far as a producers meeting [at the network], but they said it was ‘too depressing,'” says Marsden. “They love hoarders,” she cracks, demonstrating her trademark humor. “I was like, ‘What if I find an autistic hoarder?'”

And she bristles at the idea that her pitch was depressing.

“‘Really?'” she recalls saying. “‘Yes, there are moments that are depressing, but, by and large, the people I know in this world are the funniest, most creative, empathetic, warm, and loving people; I find it uplifting. If you are seeing it as depressing, the world is seeing it as depressing, and we need to break out of that.'”

So Marsden decided to take matters into her own hands, forging ahead and using her own funds (to date, approximately $15,000) to produce a library of video vignettes for her website, Real Look Autism, (reallookautism.com), a resource for anyone touched by or interested in autism.

Her goal? To focus on concrete strategies and pragmatic solutions—from dealing with messy table manners to awkward social skills and compulsive behaviors—that have worked with children who have autism spectrum disorders.

“Research is great,” says Marsden. “But we need to help people who are in it now.”

Though Marsden had misgivings about the idea of putting Tess—now a fourth grader in a special-education program at The Chatsworth School in Reisterstown—and her anxiety about school in the spotlight, she ultimately felt it was an important thing to do.

“I realized that if I was going to ask other people to tell their stories, I would have to tell mine, too,” she says.

In Tess’s video, she is shown with helpful teachers who offer strategies—reinforcing positive behavior and giving Tess “preferred breaks” like video-game time—that help her deal with her anxiety about school.

“People have told me they have shown the video of Tess as part of an IEP [individualized education plan] meeting at school. I’m like, ‘Wow. We helped someone.’ That makes me feel so good,” Marsden says.

All of the videos on the Real Look Autism site (eight to date), feature Baltimore-area families and are filmed and edited by Marsden’s former WMAR co-worker, videographer John Anglim.

“I thought it was a fantastic idea,” says Anglim, “and it was filling such a need that no one else was. It fit like a key in a lock. And from personal experience, there are members of my family on the spectrum, so it hit home.”

The videos have been a huge hit not only in America, but also in Australia and the UK.

“She throws herself at it,” marvels Marsden’s husband, Mark McGrath, a financial adviser for Stifel Nicolaus. “I thought this might be just a ‘Mary Beth project.’ I had no idea it would reach a global audience.”

Almost obsessively, Marsden tracks how many people have viewed her videos both on the Real Look Autism website and on YouTube.

“Fifty-thousand,” she says, scanning her website on the laptop in her kitchen. “That’s not enough. I want to get to one million. I could talk about autism forever,” she adds with emphasis. “You either find your thing, or it finds you. And this is my thing.”

As a child, Marsden, the oldest of three, was never afraid to go after what she wanted. And what she wanted in her teen years was to leave the family fold and get out and explore the world on her own.

“I was bossy and driven and independent,” says the Washington, D.C., native. “I couldn’t wait to get out of the house to work in Ocean City in the summers at the Longhorn Steakhouse. I wore a tight polyester uniform and spent the tips as fast as we made them.”

In 1979, Marsden headed off to Towson University to major in fine art. In drama class one day, the assignment was to perform one’s own obituary. Marsden performed hers as a newscaster.

“My friends told me I was a natural, so I think I had the bug at that point,” recalls Marsden.

By 1981, Marsden, then an education major, transferred to University of Maryland, College Park, to pursue journalism. Once there, she landed an internship at D.C.’s WJLA, writing news copy for anchor Rene Poussaint. (“If she stumbled on a word during a broadcast, you figured you’d written something wrong,” she laughs, “but she was really encouraging—in a standoffish way.”)

At that point, Marsden felt she had found her calling. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Period.”

Her rise was fairly rapid, though there were some dues to pay. After graduating in 1983 with a B.A. in radio, television, and film, Marsden joined the news team at WHSV-TV in Harrisonburg, VA.

“In the TV world, you have maybe 220 markets,” she says. “This was about 187.”

Within eight months, Marsden made the leap to a much larger market in Scranton, PA, at WNEP-TV.

“I shot and edited my own video while driving around in my Ford Bronco,” Marsden recalls. “I anchored and produced the show and ran my own prompter.”

It was during this initiation by fire in Scranton, while covering everything from township meetings to strip mining, that Marsden really hit her stride.

By 1988, Marsden’s former WNEP news director, Paul Steuber, hired her for a second time to work with him at his new station, WMAR-TV in Baltimore.

“I loved it,” says Marsden, “because I am a questioner, and I am curious. It also satisfied a creative side of me—you are putting together a story with video and audio and you are piecing it together in an entertaining fashion.”

And obviously Marsden and WMAR were a good match. She stayed at the job for more than 20 years.

On a sunny winter afternoon, Marsden sits at her desk on the third floor of WBAL-AM and gets ready to host Maryland’s News Now With Mary Beth Marsden.

Dressed casually in a Relentless 7 concert T-shirt and a pair of corduroy jeans, she’s got an hour or so to prepare before she goes on the air at 2 p.m. Of course, she’s already put in a full-day’s work on the domestic front: waking up at 6:30 a.m., riding the exercise bike for 30 minutes, getting three kids ready for school, driving Tess half-way across town to Chatsworth in Reisterstown, speaking at length with her children’s pediatrician, and checking comments from fans of the Real Look Autism Facebook page.

When Marsden was offered the job of weekday afternoon drive-time host, she was initially hesitant. “I had two days where I was in a deep depression,” she says. “But once I did two shows, I was like, ‘Okay, I can do this.'”

Her WBAL colleagues had no such reservations.

“She is a great addition to our team,” says sportscaster Brett Hollander. “She has always been incredibly well respected as a broadcaster and a journalist. Good broadcasters, I have always felt, can be chameleons in this field and can adapt to anything and move from TV to radio. Mary Beth has been able to do that with total ease.”

As she reads the show’s rundown, edits copy, talks to producer Jared Ruderman, and takes occasional sips of water out of Tess’s SpongeBob Squarepants water bottle, the pixie-sized powerhouse is the picture of cool and collected.

As for her laid-back duds? She went casual from day one. “I didn’t want to set the bar too high,” she cracks.

During the show, Marsden is a total pro, juggling everything from breaking news to live interviews, and incorporating up-to-the-minute information into her script with mere minutes to broadcast. On today’s docket, an interview with WBAL-TV reporter Jayne Miller about former Governor Robert Ehrlich campaign manager Paul E. Schurick’s “Robo-calls” trial.

“Listen to this,” she says to no one in particular in the studio as she scans an article from
The Baltimore Sun about the charges of election fraud meant to suppress the African-American voter turnout during the 2010 Gubernatorial election. [“Schurick’s attorney Dwight Pettit] called the whole thing a ‘faux pas.'”

She scribbles a few notes, and minutes later, she goes live with Miller. “Do you want to talk about what the defense said first?'” she asks Miller. “I love that Dwight Pettit called it a ‘faux pas.'”

So far, Marsden says she’s loving the gig. She really appreciates the fact that “WBAL has a lot of connections,” she says. “So you get to talk to Raven’s coach John Harbaugh or a Supreme Court Justice or Cal Ripken comes in. I almost have this little kid excitement about it. I get jazzed. I am never bored, and I don’t have to put my energies into making sure I covered a zit up!”

That being said, Marsden does have some designs on getting back on TV—just not how you might think.

“My parents had a big antenna put on the roof of their house in Montgomery County so they could get Baltimore stations, and now that I’m not on TV, my mother will say, ‘Do you think [WBAL-TV] will call you to ask you to fill in?'” she chuckles.

But Marsden has other ideas for sister station WBAL-TV.

“I want to mainstream the Real Look Autism videos,” she says with a glimmer in her eye, “and I am going to be pushing WBAL-TV in April during Autism Awareness Month to be running them. I have no hesitation about [a conflict of interest]. I’m like, ‘Screw it.’ If you have a venue, who is going to fault you? Journalism feeds my mind and keeps me sharp, but this feeds my soul.”

When WJZ meteorologist Bernadette Woods and her husband found out they was pregnant with twins, it wasn’t that surprising. “We did in vitro, so it wasn’t a total shock,” she says. But going into pre-term labor at 26 weeks certainly was unexpected. Her twins, Thomas and Daniel, were born 11 weeks premature on August 28, the same day as Hurricane Irene, fitting for a meteorologist. “The fact that they’re preemies adds a whole new set of challenges—a cold could hospitalize them,” she says. “But they already have personalities. Thomas is more particular, and Daniel is squirmy and active.” Woods is now back at work and credits her co-workers for being supportive. “Denise [Koch] has teenage twins, so she’s given me great advice,” she says.

LaDawn Black

Already having a 10-year-old son, 92Q host and author LaDawn Black and her husband were stunned to hear they were having twins. “When the doctor said, ‘Baby A,’ we couldn’t believe it!” she says. Black said her pregnancy was great, but, by the end, the babies were 6 and 7 pounds. “I looked normal from behind, but when I turned to the side, I was really big,” she says. On August 17, she had a C-section at Mercy Medical Center and little Ava and Bella were born. Black says the biggest challenges have been splitting attention between the two babies and also getting into “work mode” for her radio show. “I host a show about sex and relationships,” she says. “It’s hard to feel seductive when you smell like milk and haven’t used make-up for days.” But Black says she’s learned to be patient, have fun with it, and accept the unique aspect of twins. “When we take them out, people lose their brains,” she says. “People love twins.”

Megan Pringle

There were mixed reactions when WMAR anchor Megan Pringle and her husband found out they were having twins. “I was excited, and I think he was freaked out,” she says. “His first words were, ‘Shut up!'” Pringle says her pregnancy was really smooth up until week 37 when she went in for a routine test and they did an emergency C-section that day. Her twin girls, Jordan and Nola, were born on November 8. “It’s crazy because you’re sleep deprived and up to your elbows in poop,” she says. “But it’s such a joy.” Pringle’s been dealing with the mommy guilt of not being able to tend to both of them at once. She says Nola is cuddly, while Jordan is loud and assertive. Pringle went back to the morning show and says she’s lucky because of her schedule. “We have someone help through the night and then I have all day with them,” she says. “I may never sleep again, but it’s worth it.”

As you drive down West Baltimore’s Bentalou Street, passing boarded up houses and the brown grass of Easterwood Park, you probably wouldn’t notice the unnamed alley marked with signs for Emmanuel Tire and McDonald Salvage unless you were looking for it.

If you did turn down the alley, you’d see belching black smoke and endless rubber towers at the tire factory and the long lines of tractor trailers coming and going from the salvage yard. But if you happened to turn into an unmarked gate on the left, you’d see something else entirely.

“May Peace Prevail on Earth,” reads one side of a white post near the gate, surrounded by an herb garden. “May Peace Be in Our Homes and Communities,” reads another side.

Nearby is a garden where tomatoes, peppers, and sweet potatoes grow. There are endless fruit trees and, beyond a gate, a large cemetery patrolled by two donkeys, a llama, and two guinea fowl.

There is also a large house, built more than 15 years ago by members of Jonah House, a radical Catholic collective founded on the principles of non-violence, resistance, and community. The group lived in a rented row house on Park Avenue until the opportunity to act as caretakers of St. Peter’s Cemetery in exchange for living on the grounds came up in the early ’90s.

But Jonah House isn’t all about fruit trees and hippie slogans. In the fall, three of the house’s four permanent residents were in prison, serving terms for trespassing on Federal property during attempts to damage or destroy nuclear weapons—what Jonah House members call “plowshares actions” after the biblical verse, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:4)

The group was founded in 1973 by famous anti-war activist Philip Berrigan, a former priest who led local protests against the Vietnam War as a member of the Baltimore Four (who poured animal blood on selective-service records at the Baltimore Customs House in 1967) and the Catonsville Nine (who set fire to several hundred draft files outside the selective-service office in Baltimore County).

Berrigan was at one time on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List and spent more than 10 years in prison. He died in 2002 and is the only person buried in St. Peter’s in at least the last 40 years. He and his wife, former nun Elizabeth McAlister, now 72, founded the house as a practical matter.

“We thought, ‘If we’re going to keep this up, some people are going to be going to prison, and some people have kids, and we can’t do this by ourselves,'” says McAlister, who has also spent several years in prison, has three grown children, and still lives in Jonah House. “If you have a community then you can make it through those times.”

Today, the permanent residents are in their 60s and 70s. Most non-residential community members who participate in its programs, including protests and vigils, distribution of food to the needy, and holding retreats for like-minded groups around the country, are in the same age range. It began to seem that Jonah House, a vestige of the 1960’s hippie counterculture, was heading into oblivion.

But a funny thing happened this past fall. The Occupy Baltimore movement brought hundreds of young activists together—many of them exploring political dissent for the first time—and to the great surprise and joy of Jonah House members, they looked to their activist forefathers for wisdom and support.

“We are absolutely kindred with Occupy Baltimore,” says McAlister. “We’re totally and completely supportive of their work.”

Members of the Occupy movement used a work shed at Jonah House to build both a mock schoolhouse that they erected at the site of a planned youth jail (to suggest funds should be used to build schools instead) and a mock recreation center that they erected outside City Hall to protest the privatization of seven local rec centers. McAlister and other Jonah House affiliates joined the protest at the youth-jail site and felt energized by the connection.

“We don’t know a lot of these Occupy folks, that’s the beauty of it,” says Willa Bickham, 69, a member of the extended Jonah House community and founder of Viva House, an affiliated group in Southwest Baltimore. “It’s not the same choir that we’re preaching to, it’s the young folks, and that gives us such energy and hope.”

It’s a miserable January evening, cold, with icy rain steadily pouring from a misty sky. Traffic backs up along Madison Street, as commuters rush to get to warm homes. As drivers pass Baltimore City Jail and turn to enter the Jones Falls Expressway, they encounter a half-dozen protesters, all over age 50, including McAlister, holding signs that read, among other things, “Abolish the Death Penalty: It’s Dead Wrong.”

This protest has been going on every Monday night for 18 years, when Maryland executed its first citizen after reinstating the death penalty in 1976. Some passersby honk, a few reach their thumbs up, but most just pass, inured to the weekly part of their commute.

“We got more comments and questions around the time of Troy Davis’s execution,” says one protestor, referring to the convicted murder executed in Georgia last year, despite concerns some had about his guilt.

The next morning at 5:00 a.m., McAlister drives to Panera to pick up donated bread to include in Jonah House’s weekly food distribution. Every week, Jonah House volunteers pack about 100 carefully balanced grocery bags, using donations, food purchased from food pantries for 18 cents a pound, and anything that they gather from their gardens and fruit trees. By 7:30 a.m., several dozen local people are lined up to pick up their food.

Among the volunteers doling out food is Ari Witkin, a Minnesota native and observant Jew who graduated from Goucher College two years ago with a degree in peace studies.

“I felt a real kinship with the people here,” says Witkin, who attends Jonah House’s Sunday services, in which people reflect on weekly experiences, take turns leading scripture reflections, and share a meal. “It’s not strictly Catholic. I’ve met Jews, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, and Christians of every stripe.”

After the distribution, Witkin unlatches the fence to the cemetery, where the animals are kept to keep vegetation down. There is a llama named Micah, a small donkey named Paz, and a big, friendly donkey named Vinnie. He’s named after Vinnie Quayle, the founder of St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, who helped Jonah House find its current home.

“It’s an interesting story, how they ended up there,” says Quayle, a former priest who has long had a close relationship with the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The Archdiocese owned St. Peter’s Cemetery, which is filled primarily with the graves of Irish Catholics who mainly populated the neighborhood in the first half of the 20th century. As Catholics moved out, the cemetery fell into disrepair, with growth covering the gravestones and abandoned vehicles dotting the grounds.

“In the mid-’80s, Dan Rodricks wrote a column for The Sun blasting the Archdiocese for the neglect of this cemetery,” says Quayle. “Some Irishmen called me and said ‘Let’s go to this cemetery and clean it up,’ and I got involved in this group of Irish do-gooders.”

But the group, composed mostly of elderly men, after several years of weekend work, realized that they weren’t up to the task. “We were making little progress,” says Quayle. “We would clear ground and then, when the summer came, it was grown over again. You had folks in their 60s, and, after 10 years, they were in their 70s, and they started dying on us.”

At the same time, residents of Jonah House were feeling constrained in the row house they had been renting for almost 20 years—particularly its small backyard.

“I was bothered by the fact that you could never sit in a circle,” McAlister says of the place. “You get more than six people, you weren’t in a circle anymore. We wanted a place where there was more space.”

Quayle, who had known Berrigan and McAlister for years, worked out a deal in which Jonah House could lease the space adjacent to the cemetery for $1 a year, in exchange for clearing and maintaining the cemetery.

“My role was to keep things quiet with the Archdiocese,” says Quayle. “The thought was, ‘What’s gonna happen if the crazy Irish Catholic conservatives in town find out Jonah House—who are being arrested for pouring blood over nuclear weapons—are being allowed by the Archdiocese to live on their property?'”

The deal was struck in 1993 and Jonah House members went to work clearing the land, planting gardens and fruit trees, and building their two-story house from the ground up, all by themselves. And in the 19 years that they have been at the site, there has never been any tension with the Archdiocese.

“They have done exactly what they said they were going to do,” says Quayle. “They resanctified the damn place!”

The connection between Jonah House’s aging radicals and Occupy Baltimore’s younger ones might never have happened if it weren’t for the efforts of Mike McGuire, a 39-year-old organizer of the Occupy movement who provided a bridge between the groups.

In 1990, when McGuire was a senior at Mount St. Joe’s High School, the first Persian Gulf war was raging. Worried about being drafted, McGuire looked into applying for conscientious-objector status and was referred to Phil Berrigan.

“He said, ‘Well, if you’re looking for religious reasons in the Catholic Church to oppose war, I’m afraid you’re a little screwed,'” McGuire recalls with a laugh.

Berrigan advised McGuire—who never registered with the selective service—and remained in touch with Jonah House. When the Occupy Baltimore movement started up, he reached out to the community for guidance and support. “We wanted to have that inter-generational presence,” he says.

When McGuire and several volunteers went to Jonah House to build components for its demonstrations, the young activists were amazed that the community existed.

“None of the people I was working with were familiar with Jonah House,” says McGuire. “Everybody was thrilled to learn of this community, familiarizing themselves with a little bit of local radical history. A lot of folks don’t know about the Catonsville 9 stuff—that’s already an eternity ago.”

The Occupy Baltimore leaders invited McAlister to speak at the encampment, and she readily agreed, but, as McGuire says, “Our level disorganization didn’t make it happen.”

Still, the members of Jonah House and the younger activists are both eager to build on their connections.

“There’s a continuity there, a perseverance,” says Brian Barrett, a longtime Jonah House affiliate. “It gives an institutional memory and links the past with the future.”

At 72, McAlister has no intention of backing off her dedication to resistance. She recalls her prison stints with pride, including three years in Federal prison in Alderson, WV, for disarming a B-52 nuclear cruise missile launcher at Griffith’s Air Force Base in Rome, New York. She did a short stint in Howard County for actions against The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which, she says, did “90-some percent of its work for the Department of the Navy.”

“I think we will be doing actions at Hopkins again,” she says. “We backed off that for a period, but I think it’s looming at us again.”