New Leaders program trains administrators to turn around failing schools
It's 9:00 on a Wednesday morning and Principal Stacy Place is on the move at William Paca Elementary school in East Baltimore's McElderry Park. Fresh from a meeting with the school's mental health counselor—one of Paca's students witnessed a parent being shot the previous night—the coffee-fueled administrator briskly walks the halls, making her daily checks on each classroom.
She shouts...
Jim Parsley, Elvis Tribute Artist
"I'd say around 10 or 11 years old, a friend of mine introduced me to Elvis. He was a big Elvis fan. I'd go over to his house and just started listening to his records and thought, 'This guy is gooood.'
Elvis had everything, man. He was cool. He had the sound, the moves, the looks. He was also just a good human being. He'd give you the shirt off his back. When he had money, he loved buying people...
A Lauraville writer redefines the mommy blog.
Tracey Gaughran-Perez has been keeping an online diary since the days of MS-DOS. "I've always loved to write," she says. "But then it started becoming more narrative and I actually gained followers."
So, in 2004, she started her own blog, Sweetney, where she is brutally honest about parenting, divorce, and life in general. She's also become an online mogul of sorts, creating three other websites...
As gadgets invade every aspect of our home lives, the concept of together time takes on a whole new meaning.
Something out of the ordinary—and truly remarkable—happened to Sarah Schweizer a few months ago.
The Monkton architect had a meaningful conversation with her 16-year-old son Whit. Better yet, he initiated the chat about how best to map his high school and college goals. It was the kind of conversation mothers crave. One with give and take, depth, and resolution.
And it happened via text.
Now,...
The city’s booming Latino community makes itself at home.
Nicolás Ramos left Coahuila, Mexico to come to the United States in the '70s, when he was 16, picking broccoli and cauliflower on a Texas farm, and loading boxes of cucumber, squash, cantaloupe and watermelon into refrigerated trucks.
Ramos, his brother Carlos, and five other friends, each saved $100, enough money to buy a wood-paneled Ford station wagon from a nearby junkyard. The group of seven...
A new space opens for tots to play and learn.
Move over Chuck E. Cheese's. There's now a spot in town (sans pizza) that's specifically geared toward child development, education and a healthy dose of playtime. Charm City Kids Club (CCKC) in Lutherville was started by Lindsay Klatsky and Stacy Bekman Radz after they moved from New York City to Baltimore and couldn't find an all-in-one place for their kids. "We wanted to bring to Baltimore...
After his drug arrest and rehab, Keith Mills climbs back to top sportscaster status—while trying to make amends with his kids.
In the darkest hours before dawn, Keith Mills—Baltimore's personable, ebullient sportscaster—is juggling his usual three morning gigs at WBAL on Television Hill.
He dashes into the AM-radio room on the third floor and tells early risers about the Orioles' latest loss. Then, he tosses his headset and sprints down the steps to the second-floor TV studio, where meteorologist Tony Pann greets him as...
A new principal raises the bar back up at Baltimore’s historic public high school.
Baltimore City College graduated its first coed class the same year Cindy Harcum, the school's new principal, started junior high. In love with literature and the humanities, she wanted to go to the school known as "The Castle on the Hill." Not that it would be easy. There were admission standards and, even worse, the commute from West Baltimore to Waverly.
"It took three buses and an hour and a...
Yak, python, bear: Chef Bernard Dehaene at Corner BYOB gives Baltimoreans a taste of the wild.
When chef Bernard Dehaene held a "Flintstone Dinner" at his restaurant Zot in Philadelphia, he served guests such rarities as lion and Thai waterbugs, all the while dressed as the cartoon character Fred Flintstone. For his first Exotic Meat Club meal at Corner BYOB in Hampden, he may just don a loincloth, he says—or something in a leopard print. He hasn't decided.
Both the dress and the type of...
The Incredibly True Adventures of the Baltimore Bachelorette
It's easy for people to see my life as simply a non-stop party. But I'm a career woman, too, with a list of professional goals—I'm currently working on a series of comedic dating books—that's ambitious, to say the least. I frequently skip out on things that I know I should do for myself like working out or getting enough sleep. And as expected, it's beginning to take its toll on me—especially...
