Backus

When the Nation of Islam Security Agency lost its city contract last year to guard some of Baltimore's high-rise public housing projects, Kimberly Albright lost her paycheck.For a year, she had patrolled West Baltimore's Lexington Terrace apartments, a job with perils but a wage that fed her two children. That ended in November when a new guard assumed her post after a federal order gave the lucrative contract to a competitor.But that legal tangle has benefited a Baltimore high school looking for help.

Calvin Arthur Backus, a retired stationary engineer and volunteer in veterans' affairs, died Thursday of kidney failure at Knollwood Manor in Millersville. He was 70.A longtime resident of Odenton, Mr. Backus retired in 1988 as a power engineer for the Anne Arundel County Board of Education. He worked at all the county's public schools during his 23 years of service, said his daughter, Margaret Bovat of Severn.He was a former president of the Maryland Chapter No. 14 of the National Association of Power Engineers.

.TC ANNAPOLIS -- After a while, you get so you can tell the difference. The tap, tap, tap, slam is the introduction of a hungry spot on the other end of the line; larger white perch dispense with the preliminaries.But, too often there is the different kind of tap before the slam It's more deliberate; the slam is harder, and the fight is even better. Fun yes, but twice already it has prompted Pete Backus, Harry Leavitt and I to move to another location.Before the mid-1980s, who would have thought anglers woul leave waters where rockfish of 1 to 3 pounds -- occasionally larger -- were feeding?