Edmund Skrodzki, ex-Secret Service and current executive director of campus safety and security at The Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus
I worked for 22 years with the United States Secret Service. I was going to graduate school at the time here at University of Baltimore and one of the students there was a Secret Service agent. The Secret Service intrigued me because they have dual responsibilities: They have protection, and they have criminal investigation. So, I applied.
They check you out from the day you were born to your...
A year after a same-sex marriage bill died in the state legislature, advocates try again.
Last year, when state legislators tried to make Maryland the sixth state to legalize gay marriage, their once rock-solid coalition fell apart one Sunday at a time.
"We found Mondays to be bad days for our vote count," says Delegate Heather Mizeur of Montgomery County, one of a handful of openly gay legislators. "Each passing Sunday, many local pastors spent entire services devoted to preaching...
A look back at the local luminaries we lost in the past year
William Donald Schaefer, 89With his lumpy physique, occasionally dour demeanor, and complete indifference to fashion, William Donald Schaefer did not exactly cut a dashing public figure. And yet, absolutely no one exerted a more profound influence on this city in modern times.
From 1955, when he was first elected to the Baltimore City Council, until 2006, when he was defeated for a third term as...
A local nonprofit provides new homes for abandoned and neglected animals.
In 2007, Michelle Ingrodi suffered a bad breakup. So, she did what many do in that situation and decided to get a dog. After exploring a couple of adoption agencies, she discovered the option of fostering.
"I fostered a puppy and, a week later, it got adopted," she said. "I loved it and wanted to do it again."
So she took out an ad on Craigslist saying that she could foster pets. Eventually, she...
A documentary about Elmo's local creator, Kevin Clash, debuts at the Charles.
When Being Elmo premiered at the Charles Theater on November 18, it was a homecoming of sorts.
The documentary focuses on Kevin Clash, who grew up in Baltimore County, graduated from Dundalk High School and Towson University, and honed his skills as a puppeteer at the Inner Harbor. He went on to join Jim Henson at the Children's Television Workshop, where he created Elmo, the beloved red monster...
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...
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