Boards

CHICAGO -- She sat in Suite No. 450 at Comiskey Park, her 2-year-old son munching a hot dog, her 2-month-old daughter letting out an occasional cry.Now came the true test for Frank Thomas' wife.All right, Elise, White Sox or Orioles?The question might seem ridiculous, considering that her husband is one of the biggest sports heroes in Chicago, with a contract that could keep him in a White Sox uniform through the year 2000.But let's talk roots.Elise Thomas is formerly a Silver, a Rochester Silver, a Rochester Red Wings Silver.

It's a whole lot quieter in Penn Station these days - no whirring sounds, no clickety-clack of an old-fashioned, mechanical signboard bringing the news that your train is 20 minutes late. In place of the iconic board above the main desk at Baltimore's Amtrak station, there now hangs a large digital board that works intermittently as it undergoes testing. For live information, passengers depend on two small temporary digital screens - miniature versions of what travelers might see listing arrivals and departures at an airport.

The Baltimore Police Department tapped one of its lawyers as the new head of internal affairs, saying Rodney Hill's experience as an officer and his recent turn as a prosecutor of police misconduct cases give him the credibility to lead a group charged with restoring public trust. Hill, 50, replaces Grayling Williams, who left in March to accept a position with the Pennsylvania attorney general's office. Since April 2012, Hill has been assigned to the Police Department through the city's Law Department, providing legal advice to internal investigators, prosecuting police officers at internal disciplinary hearing boards and representing the department in court.

After two weeks of troubling news at the Naval Academy, a gallows humor has drifted into Bancroft Hall, the stone dormitory where all midshipmen live."

The founder of the Catonsville-based retirement community company that pioneered campus-style continuing-care facilities nationwide faces a $100 million lawsuit brought on by a trustee this month. John C. Erickson, who founded the Baltimore County Erickson Retirement Communities in 1983, is accused, along with his family members and other former board members, of approving company assets for private use. The company has since been bought by a local entrepreneur and operates under new leadership as Erickson Living.

Laurel has undergone many changes since the 1980s, but one thing has remained consistent over the years: the Laurel Board of Trade's annual Main Street Festival. This year's Main Street Festival, the 33rd one overall, will be held on Saturday, May 11, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Main Street will be closed to traffic between southbound Route 1 and Seventh Street for the festival, which could attract upward of 100,000 people. The festival usually hosts about 300 vendors and service organizations are spread out along the street, said Janet Able, treasurer of the Laurel Board of Trade.

Editor's note: Each week, InsideMdSports.com provides this blog with a Maryland recruiting feature that previously appeared as premium content on its site. With Dez Wells, Jake Layman and Nick Faust returning next season, each still an underclassman, Maryland's in no great need of small forward types. But regardless of roster make-up, you never stop looking for potential impact players, and Terry Larrier may be one such example. It's unknown if the Terps have officially offered Larrier, a fast-rising 2014 forward from the Bronx, N.Y., but there's no question they're interested.

As a child, Terry Landau used to look over her mother's shoulder as she did the daily crossword puzzle in the New York Herald Tribune. By age 15, she was hooked. Today, Landau still does daily puzzles, but quite differently from the way her mother did. Every night about 10, the 52-year-old paralegal logs on to the Internet from her Manhattan apartment to do the next day's puzzle on The New York Times Web site. Using crossword puzzle software, she types her answers into the black-and-white grid on the screen.

Francis B. "Frank" Burch, Jr., co-chairman of the Baltimore-based law giant DLA Piper, resigned abruptly last week from Johns Hopkins' medicine and university boards. Hopkins officials did not announce Burch's departure but confirmed Tuesday he had left on June 19, almost a year after taking the post. "Mr. Frank Burch has resigned from the boards of trustees of Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Johns Hopkins Health System and Johns Hopkins Hospital for personal reasons," said Gary M. Stephenson, the spokesman.

Describing herself as a community artist who makes art for social justice seems fitting for 29-year-old Ashley Minner, who not only works in various mediums but also consults, writes grants, teaches, speaks and serves on boards for several arts organizations and projects. This stems from her growing up in the Lumbee Native American community, where Minner said she learned to "help out and give back whenever possible. " One way she does this is by facilitating an after-school art program for Native American girls.