Academy Alumni

The chief executive officer of the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association is stepping down, about four months after a lawsuit was filed relating to how the association is run. George Watt informed the board of directors of his decision Friday. The litigation concerns the governance of the alumni association. In May, two alumni voiced concern about the association's 2006 election and term limits for board members. Associated Press

A group of Naval Academy alumni plan to seek presidential pardons for two former football players who were court-martialed on sexual assault-related charges. The group of academy graduates is being led by Peter Optekar, a former Navy football player and member of the Class of 1963 who said he has been active in defending other Navy players who have been unfairly treated. The former players, quarterback Lamar Owens Jr. and reserve player Kenneth Ray Morrison, both went to trial after being charged with sexually assaulting female midshipmen.

After almost 10 weeks of fiery and bitter debate questioning the future of the Naval Academy and its recent emphasis on ethics training, the academy's alumni association rebuffed an internal attack on the school's programs and curriculum. Last week, the association turned back a symbolic challenge to the re-election of the group's chairman by Charles C. Krulak, a graduate and former commandant of the Marine Corps who has called the school's ethics training programs "mumbo jumbo." A group of alumni began promoting Krulak as a write-in candidate for the chairmanship to "send the academy a message."

Adm. Jerome Smith was never able to bring his wife, who uses a wheelchair, to events at the Naval Academy's alumni house. Jill Smith couldn't get up the stairs at the historic mansion, known as Ogle Hall. Even if she could, her chair wouldn't fit through doorways. But with $2 million in improvements unveiled yesterday at the headquarters of the Naval Academy Alumni Association & Foundation, she will be able to be at his side at reunions there. It was "impossible for her to get around in the old place," said Smith, who lives just outside Annapolis.

In the latest round of an ongoing skirmish, a group of gay U.S. Naval Academy graduates is pressing the academy's alumni association to approve an anti-discrimination policy when its board of trustees meets Thursday - a step the association rejects as unnecessary. Jeff Petrie of San Francisco, a 1989 graduate, said yesterday that he and others plan to attend the board meeting in Alumni Hall to make the point - if only as silent observers - that some homosexual and transgender academy graduates favor having an explicit policy written into the 51,000- member alumni association's bylaws.

The board of the Naval Academy Alumni Association unanimously rejected yesterday an application by homosexual graduates to start a national chapter, giving as its reason the group's geographically disparate membership. Skid Heyworth, spokesman for the alumni association, said the board did not debate before voting down the application filed by USNA Out, a group of more than 31 gay and lesbian academy graduates. "The board was very decisive," said Heyworth. "The group just did not fit the profile of our alumni chapters."

Two Naval Academy alumni will spearhead the conversion of a storied former naval research station near Annapolis into a privately run high-tech office park that could employ 2,000 people, Anne Arundel County announced yesterday. Annapolis Partners LLC said it plans to invest $200 million during the next decade, beginning with construction of a new headquarters for Annapolis-based TeleCommunications Systems Inc. on a promontory across the Severn River from the Naval Academy. The company has 320 employees.

USNA alumni group to honor 5 graduates for notable careers The United States Naval Academy Alumni Association will present the Distinguished Graduate Award to five graduates during a ceremony at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow at Memorial Hall. The 2001 recipients are: John W. Crawford Jr., a career naval officer from the academy's Class of 1942; Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., a 1947 academy graduate and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale, a 1947 graduate and Medal of Honor recipient; Adm. James D. Watkins, a 1949 graduate and former secretary of energy; and Capt.

A group of Naval Academy alumni plan to seek presidential pardons for two former football players who were court-martialed on sexual assault-related charges. The group of academy graduates is being led by Peter Optekar, a former Navy football player and member of the Class of 1963 who said he has been active in defending other Navy players who have been unfairly treated. The former players, quarterback Lamar Owens Jr. and reserve player Kenneth Ray Morrison, both went to trial after being charged with sexually assaulting female midshipmen.

The Ballet Theatre of Annapolis has been selected to participate in Baltimore's Dance Commissioning and Residency Program and, and to perform at Artscape '91. This program is co-sponsored by the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Art and Culture, and Baltimore's Festival of the Arts Inc.In addition, BTA receives a two-week residency with nationally known American choreographer Jennifer Muller. She will create anew dance piece especially for BTA.BTA will premier the new work during the Baltimore Arts Festival at 7:15 p.m. July 20 on the Decker Stage near the Walters Art Gallery.

The chief executive officer of the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association is stepping down, about four months after a lawsuit was filed relating to how the association is run. George Watt informed the board of directors of his decision Friday. The litigation concerns the governance of the alumni association. In May, two alumni voiced concern about the association's 2006 election and term limits for board members. Associated Press

A group of Naval Academy graduates is waging war against an unlikely foe - the leadership of the alumni association - over election rules that give members little choice in filling the top two posts. A year after a bitter board election in which Naval Academy Alumni Association members were only allowed to ratify a nominating committee's recommendation for chairman, essentially keeping a challenger for that post off the ballot, a splinter group is threatening to sue the 48,000-member organization for violating, in its view, the basic principles of democracy that many of their comrades have died defending.

Throughout her accomplished Naval Academy and Marine Corps career, Capt. Jennifer J. Harris never attracted special attention for being a woman. So it was fitting, friends said, that she was not singled out in death, when the academy placed her name yesterday among hundreds of others on a marble tablet designated to honor graduates who were killed in action. She is only the second woman in school history to be added to the list, which includes 954 men dating back to the Civil War, many long celebrated as heroes.

It's been 40 years since Israel attacked the U.S. Navy spy ship USS Liberty, killing 34 American sailors and injuring 172 more in what both governments say was an accident. Today, Naval Academy alumni are scheduled to dedicate a plaque in memory of two classmates who were killed in the attack, which occurred June 8, 1967, in the Mediterranean Sea. The Liberty incident, which remains controversial, occurred on the fourth day of what has come to be known as the Six-Day War. Today's ceremony will be at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, where the plaque will be on display honoring Stephen Spencer Toth, academy class of 1963, and Philip McCutcheon Armstrong, Jr., class of 1953.

A former Navy quarterback who was acquitted of rape and now faces expulsion from the Naval Academy took his case to Washington last week, urging members of Congress to support his attempts to graduate and become an officer. Securing the free assistance of several people from lobbying giant Cassidy & Associates is the latest step for Lamar S. Owens Jr.'s supporters, a group that includes a growing number of academy alumni with a wide range of influence garnered from prominent careers in the public and private sectors.

Three of them collectively won more than 50 medals and commendations. One became a captain of industry and a philanthropist. All four are Naval Academy graduates who will be awarded the Distinguished Graduate Award by the college's alumni association. The recipients announced last week are retired Rear Adm. Maurice H. Rindskopf, Class of 1938; retired Adm. Thomas B. Hayward, Class of 1948; Ralph Hooper, Class of 1951; and retired Adm. Leighton W. Smith Jr., Class of 1962. The award, created in 1999, honors graduates who are "living role models" to the academy's midshipmen, said George P. Watt Jr., president and chief executive officer of the alumni association and academy foundation, which funds the awards ceremony.

Annapolis Historic District residents and the Naval Academy Alumni Association are expected to go head-to-head tonight at City Hall over the association's proposal to expand in the district.The association has applied for a conditional use permit to convert a house next door to its headquarters at King George Street and College Avenue for use as fund-raising offices with an outdoor garden for entertaining.The class of 1949 has promised to pay $300,000 to remake the Victorian home at 49 College Ave.The city council has scheduled a hearing at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.

Rear Adm. Ronald F. Marryott, a former superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy who led and taught generations of sailors and officers during a Navy career that spanned 33 years, died Saturday of complications from leukemia at his home near Annapolis. He was 71. Superintendent from 1986 to 1988, he was a member of the Class of 1957 and honored last year as a Naval Academy Distinguished Graduate. He was nominated for the award by the academy alumni association, of which he was a former president.

The United States Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation has named four alumni recipients of the academy's Distinguished Graduate Award, including a Medal of Honor winner and a two-time academy superintendent. The award recipients are: Capt. Thomas Hudner, a 1947 graduate; Adm. Kinnaird R. McKee, a 1951 graduate; Gen. Robert T. Herres, a 1954 graduate; and Adm. Charles R. Larson, a 1958 graduate. George P. Watt Jr., president and chief executive of the alumni association, said in a statement that the four men were chosen among a pool of hundreds of distinguished alumni.

In the latest round of an ongoing skirmish, a group of gay U.S. Naval Academy graduates is pressing the academy's alumni association to approve an anti-discrimination policy when its board of trustees meets Thursday - a step the association rejects as unnecessary. Jeff Petrie of San Francisco, a 1989 graduate, said yesterday that he and others plan to attend the board meeting in Alumni Hall to make the point - if only as silent observers - that some homosexual and transgender academy graduates favor having an explicit policy written into the 51,000- member alumni association's bylaws.