Briscoe

John Dawkins Briscoe, whose more than six-decade career as a Calvert County farmer spanned the era of horse-drawn equipment to modern tractors and combines, died of natural causes Friday at his farm in St. Leonard. He was 85. Mr. Briscoe, who was known as "Jack," was born and raised at Stonesby, his family's farm on the Patuxent River at what was then called Parker's Wharf. Mr. Briscoe's schooling through the seventh grade was in a rural one-room schoolhouse at Island Creek. After graduating from Calvert High School in 1937, he attended Fork Union Military Academy in Fork Union, Va., where he took college preparatory courses.

Anna Pauline Briscoe, a retired cafeteria manager in Baltimore's public schools and housing activist, died of cancer Friday at a daughter's home in East Baltimore. She was 84. Born Anna Pauline White in Abingdon, she moved to Baltimore with her family and graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in 1935. Mrs. Briscoe had worked as a food service worker and cafeteria manager at Lombard Junior High School and Dunbar High School for more than 20 years before retiring in the late 1970s.

After deliberating 15 hours, a Howard County jury convicted Kevin Michael Briscoe of felony murder yesterday in the April 1990 slaying ofa 44-year-old woman in her Columbia town house.Pamela Mary Barker, a program analyst with the Health Care Financing Administration, was found stabbed to death in the bedroom of her ransacked home in Columbia's Stevens Forest neighborhood. Briscoe and two other men were charged.With no fingerprints, blood or fiber samples linking the 26-year-old Briscoe to the murder, Assistant State's Attorney Christine Gage relied on a paper trail of bank records and credit card receipts to prove the case.

The Rev. Catherine Briscoe, a former cosmetologist who became an ordained minister and founded a Baptist church, died of respiratory failure Sunday at a daughter's Catonsville home. She was 78. Born Catherine Walker in Baltimore, she was raised on Retreat Street and graduated in 1946 from Frederick Douglass High School. She also studied cosmetology at Carver Vocational-Technical High School. Mrs. Briscoe later taught cosmetology at Carver and the Apex Beauty Academy, and established Briscoe's Style-Arama Beauty Shop in the early 1960s -- first on Mount Street in West Baltimore, then on East 31st Street, which she operated until closing the business in the 1970s.

Saying that society should be protected from Kevin Michael Briscoe, a county Circuit Court judge sentenced him yesterday to life plus 30 years for his role in the April 1990 slaying of a 44-year-old Columbia woman.Briscoe, 26, was convicted in January of felony murder inthe death of Pamela Mary Barker, who was found stabbed to death in the bedroom of her home in the 9700 block of Basket Ring Road. Barker was a program analyst with the Health Care Financing Administration.Circuit Judge Raymond J. Kane Jr. sentenced Briscoe to life in prison for the felony murder conviction and imposed the maximum sentences of 20 years for robbery with a deadly weapon and 10 years for burglary, to be served consecutively.

Susan B. Smallwood was working in her first assignment as a teacher, but already knew firsthand the difficulties encountered by her special-education students. She spent her life battling muscular dystrophy and had used a wheelchair since childhood.Ms. Smallwood, 26, died Wednesday of injuries suffered in a car lTC accident on Cherry Tree Lane, while on her way to her students at Joseph C. Briscoe High School, a public alternative school in Baltimore.Near her Sykesville home, her specially equipped minivan struck the back of a school bus. Then a car hit her van, police said.

M. Gayle Briscoe (below) became president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors last week, succeeding Adam D. Cockey of W.H.C. Wilson & Co. as head of the 3,300-member trade association.Briscoe, vice president of Otis Warren Real Estate Services, has been assisting consumers in the home-buying process for more than 25 years.She has an undergraduate degree in psychology from Hampton University in Virginia and a master's in social work from the University of Maryland, and has an associate broker's license.

Opening arguments are expected to begin tomorrow in the trial of Kevin Michael Briscoe, charged with the first-degree murder of Pamela Mary Barker, a 44-year-old Social Security Administration worker who was killed in her Columbia town house in April 1990.Briscoe, 26, ofthe Stevens Forest neighborhood in Columbia, was arrested on May 7, 1990, by Howard County and Baltimore police.The state is seeking a sentence of life without parole in the case, said Assistant State's Attorney Christine Gage.

Everyone should have a Patricia Claxton-Briscoe in their office. Not only is she an expert baker and floral arranger who shares the fruits of her talents with colleagues, she has a bold sense of style that has raised the sartorial bar at the Maryland Classified Employees Association where she works as an information services assistant.Claxton-Briscoe, 50, says she owes her savvy use of color and texture to her late mother, Hattie L. Chappelle. "She paved the path of how a lady should look when going out of the house," the Catonsville resident says.

When Gayle Briscoe took over as president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors last October, little did she know that she would be presiding over one of the most turbulent years in recent board history.With the GBBR convention being held Wednesday at the Baltimore Convention Center, a new executive vice president ready to be introduced tomorrow and with her term almost over, she rattles off the adjectives that described the last 12 months:"Challenging. Stimulating. Mind-stretching. Faith-building.