Alumni Association

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.

John Yaeger had to carry his adult daughter Jessica into her sister's wedding reception in September at the Naval Academy's alumni house. Jessica Yaeger, who uses a wheelchair, had no other way to make it up the five steps into 270-year-old Ogle Hall. Nor could she enter its women's room, forcing her to return to her home a block away to use a bathroom. John Yaeger, a 1974 academy graduate, joined Jessica yesterday at the groundbreaking for a $1.8 million, three-story addition to the house.

SPRING CLEANING is a fine old tradition. In fact, it probably would be a good idea to try it out at my house.Crofton Swim and Tennis Club invites its members to take part in this great American tradition by helping spruce up the club grounds from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday during Spring Clean-Up Day.Bring your rakes. Bring your tools. Bring your kids. Everyone can have fun, meet friends, and start getting ready for a summer of fun, playing tennis, swimming and sunning by the pool. Refreshments will be provided.

More than 900 people crowded a banquet room at Martin's West for the 14th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast given by the Howard L. Cornish Metropolitan Baltimore Chapter of the Morgan State University Alumni Association. The event honored the slain civil rights leader through praise, song and fellowship.The Rev. Vashti McKenzie of Payne Memorial A.M.E. Church was guest speaker. Fifteen scholarships were given to local students, 10 from Nestle USA and five from the alumni chapter.

ST. JOHN United Methodist Church will celebrate Family and Friends Day with a 4 p.m. service Saturday.Once a year St. John sets aside a day to welcome back families who have relocated outside the area. Each family in the church is asked to choose a "family captain" to represent it during the ceremonies.The guest choir at the services will be the Argonne Hills Gospel Choir from Fort Meade.The St. John Methodist Church is at 6019 Belle Grove Road.Information: 410-636-2578.Rock 'n' learn"Education Rock," an interactive educational rock concert, will make a stop at the Brooklyn Park library at 1: 30 p.m. Tuesday.

Six months after his arrival at the helm of the U.S. Naval Academy, Vice Adm. John R. Ryan announced yesterday an ambitious plan to begin seeking private donations for new athletic facilities and other improvements.The money would pay for a new soccer field, a tennis center, upgrades at the sailing center, and possibly a parking garage and some academic improvements. The donations would free up federal funds for more than $300 million in needed repairs and modernizations, especially at academic buildings.

For the second time in three years, the Maryland State Police Alumni Association has selected a trooper from the Westminster barracks -- the state's largest -- as its 1997 Trooper of the Year.Tfc. Chris Hannon, 36, who works road patrol in Carroll County, also is one of 12 finalists for the agency's 1997 Trooper of the Year award, which will be presented next month.Hannon's involvement in making arrests in several high-profile cases, including a double homicide in Hampstead, and his performance in day-to-day burglary and theft investigations earned him the alumni association's top award.

WHAT DRIVES America Drives Best Buddies -- Friendship" was the theme of this year's Best Buddies Ball held at the Potomac home of Eunice and Sargent Shriver. Best Buddies was founded in 1989 by their son Anthony and has since paired nearly 10,000 people with mental retardation with people without mental retardation in one-to-one friendships. Best Buddies now has chapters in more than 400 high schools, colleges and universities.It was a festive, black-tie evening, which had as its honorary chairs President and Mrs. Bill Clinton.

Dr. Richard J. Otenasek Jr., a Baltimore neurosurgeon and volunteer who was ill with cancer, had stood humbly on the stage at Loyola High School's commencement to hear his life praised as a model for others.Dr. Otenasek, 63, who was presented the Rev. Joseph M. Kelley, S.J., Medal by the school's alumni association last month, died Monday at his Homeland residence surrounded by his family.In a letter to the alumni association, a son wrote: "My father has spent a lifetime embracing the spirit of St. Ignatius and being a man for others.

Glenn Lowman Jr., 71, house painter, portraitistGlenn Lowman Jr., a house painter who relaxed by sketching portraits and painting landscapes, died Saturday of a heart attack at Liberty Medical Center. The Northwest Baltimore resident was 71.Mr. Lowman worked as a painter for Bethlehem Steel Corp. in Sparrows Point during the late 1940s and 1950s before starting a house painting company.Relatives said that after work, he would sketch portraits of people and scenery.He retired from house painting in 1982 but continued his art until his death.

The fight over the fate of Towson Catholic High School escalated Tuesday when the alumni association filed suit against the school's parish and its pastor over the abrupt closing of the school. The group is seeking an injunction to keep the school open at least another year. "This closing is a slap in the face to the alumni and to anyone who ever loved this school. We were ready to remedy this through various options, but we could not get the archdiocese to the table," said alumni association president Paul Mecinski, who announced the lawsuit at a rally last night.

The Towson Catholic High School alumni have vowed to fight the abrupt closing of their alma mater with rallies, an awareness campaign and even a possible lawsuit. Organizers plan a peaceful demonstration at 8:30 a.m. Sunday at Immaculate Conception Church in an effort to inform parishioners attending Mass of what has happened to the school that has been part of the church's life since 1922. They will stand silently on the roadside with signs. Alumni, parents and students are also being urged to gather at the school at 7 p.m. Tuesday for what will be the third demonstration since the closing was announced this week.

Eastern High School's pink marble likeness of a good shepherd, which spent two decades at another campus, has returned to its original home in Waverly. The Eastern High Alumni Association donated $20,000 to have the statue disassembled and moved this spring from the merged Lake Clifton-Eastern High School, where it had spent the last 22 years. "This statue was the site of the first kiss and the first cigarette for a lot of us," recalled Peg McAllen, a 1944 graduate of Eastern. The piece, formally known as the Lizette Woodworth Reese Memorial - also called the Good Shepherd Statue - will be rededicated at a public ceremony Monday at what is now the Johns Hopkins at Eastern campus.

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.

Math academy for teachers continues The 2008-2009 "Governor's Academy for Middle School Mathematics: Algebra and Numbers" will be held from 8:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. tomorrow through Thursday at Perryville Middle School, 850 Aiken Ave. The two-week program, which also was held July 8-11, is for public school teachers and will focus on the challenges of ensuring that students proficient on the Maryland School Assessment in middle school math. Teachers will become the students in learning mathematical concepts, strengthening their teaching skills, how to raise students' achievement and creating a network of teachers committed to excellence.

Black social club to honor outgoing Annapolis police chief A predominantly African-American social club will honor outgoing Annapolis police Chief Joseph Johnson on Friday. Hundreds of people, including Maryland Court of Appeals Judge Clayton Greene Jr., County Councilman Daryl Jones, Maryland NAACP President Gerald Stansbury, former County Executive Janet S. Owens, Mayor Ellen O. Moyer and Maryland House of Delegates Speaker Michael E. Busch, are expected to attend the event at the Peerless Rens club, 403 Chester Ave. Johnson, who is stepping down in June after nearly 14 years at his post, is the only African-American ever to lead the Annapolis Police Department.

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

Betty Lee Seiland, a retired social worker active in her college's alumni association, died of cancer Feb. 12 at her Sykesville home. She was 79. Born Betty Lee Robbins in Baltimore and raised on Linnard Street, she was a 1946 Western High School graduate and earned a degree at Western Maryland College, now McDaniel College. She later headed its Baltimore alumni association chapter and was a visitor of the school's alumni association board. She was the 1971 recipient of the Western Maryland College Alumni Meritorious Service Award.

Eugene Elbert Ward, a retired teacher and prisons administrator, died of congestive heart failure Monday at the Joseph Richey Hospice. The Catonsville resident was 93. A Baltimore native who was raised in South Baltimore, Mr. Ward was a 1937 graduate of Frederick Douglass Senior High School. During World War II he served in the Army and fought in the South Pacific at Okinawa, the Philippines and Iwo Jima. After the war, he earned a bachelor's degree in English and social studies at Storer College in Harpers Ferry, W.Va.

A pair of Naval Academy graduates has sued the school's powerful alumni association, accusing the top leaders of flouting the board's bylaws and demanding they be thrown out for allegedly violating term limits. The two graduates, backed by a former commandant of the Marine Corps, who filed the lawsuit Monday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, accuse the board of the 48,000-member association of manipulating last year's election to keep the incumbent chairman in office. They point to an ongoing discussion about scrapping elections altogether as further evidence that the alumni association is alienating members.