NEWS
By Frederick N. Rasmussen, The Baltimore Sun | March 13, 2012
Helen G. Rigler, a former elementary school educator and opera buff, died Saturday of heart failure at Mercy Medical Center. The Parkton resident was 93. The daughter of a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. draftsman and a homemaker, Helen Gill was born in Baltimore and raised in Boring. After graduating from Franklin High School in 1936, she earned a bachelor's degree in education in 1940 from what is now Towson University. After completing her student teaching at Lida Lee Tall School on the Towson campus, she began teaching at Margaret Brent Elementary School and later at Stoneleigh Elementary School.
NEWS
By Jacques Kelly, The Baltimore Sun | February 25, 2012
Sol Goodman, a retired auto leasing and sales executive who wrote poetry that spoke of the joys of living in Baltimore, died of kidney failure Feb. 18 at Sunrise Senior Living in Pikesville. The longtime Mount Vernon resident was 88. Born in Baltimore and raised on Brookfield Avenue in Reservoir Hill, he was a 1941 City College graduate. During World War II, he was an Army medic serving in France, where he helped treat soldiers suffering from what now is called post-traumatic stress disorder.
NEWS
By Frederick N. Rasmussen, The Baltimore Sun | January 10, 2012
Charles Orestus Smith, a retired CareFirst Medicare contractor who was an avid fan of the opera and symphony, died Jan. 3 of a heart attack at his home in the Northway Apartments in Guilford. He was 74. Born in Baltimore and raised in Guilford, Mr. Smith was a 1954 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Army and was sent to the Army Language School in Monterey, Calif., where he learned Russian. While serving in Japan, he met and married the former Yasuko Takagi in 1958.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun | October 22, 2011
Three years ago, a Druid priestess and her Roman lover walked willingly and melodically into a blazing pyre as the curtain fell on a performance of Bellini's "Norma" at the Lyric Opera House . Those epic characters were not the only ones being consumed. The Baltimore Opera Company, which gave that masterpiece an effective staging, soon went up in smoke, too, the victim of debt and disillusionment. A Chapter 11 filing in December 2008 was followed in early 2009 by a decision to liquidate.
NEWS
By Jacques Kelly, The Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Sun reporter | August 12, 2011
Bernice Robinson, a retired bank secretary, died of complications from arthritis and osteoporosis Aug. 3 at her Lutherville home. She was 83. Born Bernice Jeffery in Newark, Del., she was a 1946 graduate of Newark High School, where she played field hockey and basketball and was a member of the school band, glee club and dramatic society. She moved to Baltimore and became a teller and then a secretary to the president, S. Page Nelson, at the old Savings Bank of Baltimore at Charles and Baltimore streets.
NEWS
April 12, 2011
We come not to bury the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, but to praise the outstanding job it did keeping the Bard's work alive for Baltimore audiences for 17 seasons. Parting is such sweet sorrow when the departed one has so entertained, educated and delighted local theatergoers for so long. The company announced last week it was closing due to financial troubles it had been experiencing for nearly a decade and that were exacerbated by the recent recession. Though there has always been an enthusiastic audience here for Shakespeare's enduring masterpieces, they have never been cheap to produce.