Children S Center

Jennifer H. Luey, a Federal Hill resident and former preschool teacher, died at her home Thursday of heart problems related to diabetes. She was 29.From 1995 until she left in September to raise her son, Mrs. Luey had been on the faculty of the Downtown Baltimore Children's Center. Earlier, she taught at Bethesda Lynnbrook Children's Center."She was a young, progressive teacher who had wonderful ideas and believed that children learned through play," said David Robinson, director of the Downtown Baltimore Children's Center.

Bryce W. Riley, 20, artist, Children's Center supporterBryce W. Riley, an artist and longtime supporter of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, died Saturday after emergency brain surgery at Sinai Hospital for a head injury he suffered in a wheelchair football game earlier that day. He was 20 and a Perry Hall resident.Mr. Riley was diagnosed with dermatomyositis, a rare muscle and tissue disease, when he was 6.For more than a decade, Mr. Riley was an energetic spokesman and fund-raiser for the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

Face it, faithful Candid Closet readers, Dr. George Dover, director of Johns Hopkins Children's Center, has better things to worry about than his clothes. He says even his wife Barbara yawns at the sight of his standard wear.So what's this with the ties? Ever since Hopkins and Jos. A. Banks Clothiers produced the Miracle Collection, a line of men's neckwear featuring designs based on the molecular structure of important pediatric medications, Dover has been very, very big on his ties. The collection was launched for the fourth year yesterday with a fashion show that included the dapper Dr. Dover.

Saturday is "liberty" for midshipmen -- a time for sleeping late, escaping campus or finding other diversions from a grueling week of study and training.So what is William Major, 20, doing reading to a boy who has spent the past seven weeks in traction at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center?What about Drew Streib, who assembled puzzles and cut shamrocks with two girls with tubes in their arms. Or Kathryn Sampson, who sat in a darkened room comforting a crying infant? Or Dante Jones, who shot pool with an 11-year-old boy who couldn't shake the flu because of a bone marrow disease?

Polly Hesterberg begins each day in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit looking for adults in distress. With a mother's instinct for caring - and a nurse's attention to detail - she will check each room and bed for the tell-tale signs.A tearful mother has left her infant's bedside when some doctors approached. Did they unfairly push her out?The mom down the hall speaks only Turkish. Better call in a translator to make sure she understands what's happening to her son.The mother one door down was upset that her daughter was awakened so often during the night for tests.

At 6 p.m. yesterday, as WMAR-TV's 15th annual telethon to raise money for Johns Hopkins Children's Center drew to a close, the goal of $2.3 million -- including funds raised by a local radio station -- had not been reached.So the station gave another half an hour of air time to its Children's Miracle Network Telethon, said Debbie Bangledorf, a spokeswoman for the center.The total -- $2,301,519, including $469,000 that radio station MIX 106.5 FM raised in its ninth radiothon held at the same time.

Epiphany Episcopal Church, a congregation of about 75 middle-class families in Odenton, is launching a $1.55 million building project today that begins with the construction of a $750,000 children's center.The congregation has raised and pledged $250,000 to begin construction on the 4,400-square-foot center to be built on church grounds a block from the Odenton train station off Route 175.Bettye Woodruff of the Maryland Committee for Children, Michael Fox of Odenton Town Plan Committee and County Councilman Burt L. Rice are expected to attend the groundbreaking ceremony at 1 p.m. today at the church, which RTC was built in 1917.

When Westminster resident and master builder Michael Oakes walked into Johns Hopkins Children's Center for a meeting a few years ago, he was moved by the children who were suffering there and how the staff helped them heal."

Hernwood Elementary School's staff, parents and students rapped, rocked, twisted and slid to the tunes of Elvis, Chubby Checker and Kool and the Gang -- and picked up about $800 dollars -- at the school's fifth annual "hop" to help sick children at Johns Hopkins Children's Center.This year's event was held Thursday night. The fund-raiser got its start in 1993, after kindergartner Amanda Bradle died of kidney cancer. That inspired music teacher Anita Rozenel to mobilize children to help peers with serious health problems.

Curiosity kills children.It is a painful lesson learned by millions of parents each year, doctors at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health have discovered. So to prevent preschoolers' playful ventures from causing them physical harm, physicians at Hopkins opened the nation's first Children's Safety Center yesterday."Our goal is to make it easier for parents to get the safety supplies they need," said Dr. George Dover, pediatrician-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. "If we can get parents to walk into the center, maybe they won't have to walk into our emergency room with an injured child.

Ali Barbieri occupies just a sliver of her grown-up bed at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, her 5-month-old legs suspended in a miniature traction rig that holds in place the hips she dislocated at birth. Most days Ali's mother, Natalia, sits with her all day, caressing her, distracting her with the toys that share her bed, trying to introduce her to solid foods. Barbieri knows just how well her daughter is sleeping, eating and feeling. So it makes sense to involve her in Ali's care - and to have her on hand when the doctors do their early-morning rounds.

Extreme Family Outreach will celebrate the grand opening of the SCUBE DO Children's Center at 6 p.m. Thursday at 1812 H. Pulaski Highway, Edgewood. A ribbon cutting will be held at 6 p.m., followed by refreshments. The Extreme Family Outreach's SCUBE DO kids will perform and a Powerpoint presentation will offer the center's vision and direction for 2008. Reservations are requested by tomorrow. Information: 410-688-3021. Ceramics exhibit at Cecil College Cecil College will open Perpetual State of Mind, an exhibit by Tom Hitner, with a reception at 6 p.m. Friday in the Gallery in the Milburn Stone Theatre, North East campus.

Investigators were working to determine the cause of a car collision in Carroll County that killed a local orthodontist and injured seven others, Maryland State Police said yesterday. Dr. Kevin Robert Lawyer, 39, of Finksburg died in the wreck, which occurred about 4:30 p.m. Thursday on Route 91 south of Old Gamber Road, police said. Lawyer was driving southbound on Route 91 in a GMC Yukon with his six children, ages 5 to 11, when his vehicle crossed the center dividing line and struck an Utz delivery truck.

Mayo Shattuck, the president and chief executive officer of Constellation Energy Group, and his wife, Molly, have donated $1 million toward the creation of a new pediatric burn center at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The unit, which will be in a new children's tower to be completed by 2010, will care for children younger than 15 and carry the Shattuck name. "Our wish is that children and their families who are confronted with serious burn injuries can find comfort and healing in this unit of Johns Hopkins Hospital," said Molly Shattuck.

Despite assurances to the contrary, the office that monitors conditions in state Department of Juvenile Services facilities is a shadow of its former self, in size and authority. When it reconvenes next month, the General Assembly must restore the presence and the power of the office of the independent juvenile justice monitor by overriding Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s veto of a bill to house it in the attorney general's office. In its scramble to re-create its Office of Children, Youth and Families, whose charter expired this year, the administration said it would keep intact - and autonomous - the monitors' department, the only independent group that is allowed regular access to juvenile facilities.

Interfaith center congregations sponsoring concert Choirs, instrumental ensembles, folk groups and soloists from six congregations at Oakland Mills Interfaith Center will perform in a benefit concert Sunday to celebrate the facility's 30th anniversary. The concert, "Celebrating Community," will be held at 2:30 p.m. in Room 200 of the center. Light refreshments will be served at 2 p.m. Tickets are available at the door, and can be ordered by calling Beryl Little, 410-992-0254. The suggested donation is $8 for adults; $5 for children; and $25 a family.

Jeanne M. Simons, a psychiatric social worker and pioneer in the field of autism who established the Linwood Children's Center in Ellicott City, died Tuesday of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Vantage House in Columbia. She was 95. Miss Simons was born near Brussels, Belgium. After graduating from a teachers college in The Hague, Netherlands, she taught school from 1927 to 1933. She came to Washington with the outbreak of World War II and worked with emotionally disturbed children at Children's House.

A pair of year-old twin girls joined at the head will undergo a surgical separation procedure beginning Saturday, the Johns Hopkins Children's Center announced yesterday. A team of 50, including surgeons and other medical personnel, will begin the operation at 7 a.m. and continue working for 24 to 48 hours. The patients, Lea and Tabea Block, are from Lemgo, Germany, a city of about 40,000 in the western half of the country. Born Aug. 9 last year, they have conjoined heads, a condition known as craniopagus that occurs in about one of every 2 million births.

ONE SIGN of positive change at the state's Department of Juvenile Services is made of solid concrete. The Western Maryland Children's Center is the department's first brand-new building to start housing kids in three decades. It reflects the shift in philosophies toward what works best for children and away from what is most efficient for the state, a shift that had been much talked about in recent years but little seen. The short-term detention center can house up to 24 youths awaiting juvenile court hearings or placement in residential programs.

Kyle Hampton Jack, a 10-year-old whose enthusiasms were many, died Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital of complications from chronic pancreatitis. He lived in Davidsonville with his parents and brother. Kyle's interests included bowling, baseball, basketball, baking, Beanie Babies, bingo, board games and the beach. He watched the PBS shows Arthur and Zoom and The Food Channel. He also enjoyed music and musical theater, computer games, and arts and crafts. While attending preschool at Central Special Elementary School, Kyle helped in the campaign with his parents and others to raise money for a playground that would be accessible to the disabled.