Cousin

Two 12-year-old cousins are turning multicolored squares of paper into symbols of hope for those facing critical illness. Chad Fisher and Max Schnitzer have schooled themselves in the traditional Japanese art of origami, or paper folding. The boys, students at Pikesville Middle School, have promised to create 1,000 paper cranes for patients at St. Joseph Medical Center's Cancer Institute. "Japanese folklore says if you fold 1,000 cranes, you will get your wish," said Chad, whose wish is that his mother will recover from breast cancer . Although health regulations prevent the boys from interacting with patients, they have given Andrea Cooper, the hospital's artist in residence, cranes and labels for patients to attach notes to the paper birds.

Howard County Public Schools superintendent Sydney Cousin, who is on medical leave battling lymphoma, will not return to work until after spring break in late April, a memo released Wednesday to school system employees said. The county superintendent since 2004, Cousin took an indefinite medical leave in early January. Earlier this month, school officials announced that he was battling lymphoma and would be out at least until March 1. On Wednesday, a memo to employees said that while Cousin looks forward to returning to the school system, his doctors have advised him to wait until after spring break.

Mamie Perkins says she speaks each day to Howard County schools Superintendent Sydney Cousin, as she helps fill in for him while he is on a medical leave of absence and receives treatment for cancer. Perkins, whose promotion from Cousin's chief of staff to the county's deputy school superintendent was announced last week, says that Cousin is in good spirits and added, "Every day he reminds us of the expectations he has for us. " Perkins knows that those expectations will likely mount, both within the school system and the Howard community, as she assumes a role vacated when Deputy Superintendent Sandra Erickson retired in June.

Leona K. Frederick, a retired New York State Department of Labor interviewer who was a descendant of Harriet Tubman, died Jan. 5 of pulmonary hypertension at Gilchrist Hospice Care. She was 89. Leona Keene was born and raised at 830 N. Bond St. She was a 1938 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School. She later moved to Philadelphia and then Brooklyn, N.Y., where she earned a bachelor's degree from the City University of New York. Mrs. Frederick worked for the City of New York and later was a hospital dietitian before taking a job in 1977 as an employment security clerk for the New York State Department of Labor.

Oniel Cousins said symptoms stemming from the concussion he sustained two weeks ago are subsiding, but the offensive tackle still isn't sure whether he will be available for the team's preseason finale against the St. Louis Rams on Thursday night. "I don't know," Cousins said after Monday morning's practice. "I've just got to play it out and see how it feels. Like I said, I'm getting better every day. " Cousins was at practice, dressed in his jersey, helmet and shorts. But he was limited to a few individual drills.

Another offensive lineman went down for the Ravens when right tackle Oniel Cousins was carted off the field Wednesday after suffering a headache. One Ravens official said Cousins would be checked for a concussion. Another official indicated that Cousins could be exhausted after a throat procedure sidelined him for most of the offseason as well as the first week of training camp. Cousins became the sixth offensive lineman to miss practice time this week because of an injury and the second to be carted off the field in three days (backup David Hale was taken off after bruising his tailbone)

It appears that Oniel Cousins is in line to start at right tackle when the Ravens open their preseason schedule against the Carolina Panthers at M&T Bank Stadium on Thursday night. "I don't know," Cousins said with a shrug Monday when asked whether he expects to start. "It's up to the coaches and whatever they want to do. But I'll be ready to go. " The 6-foot-4, 315-pound offensive tackle's progress at this stage in training camp is eye-opening in that Cousins was just activated from the team's physically-unable-to-perform list Thursday.

Oniel Cousins has endured sprains and tears of varying degrees. But the 6-foot-4, 315-pound offensive tackle was not prepared when he began experiencing problems with his throat last month. Soon after, doctors discovered a cyst attached to Cousins' esophagus, and the subsequent operation to remove the cyst is the primary reason the third-year pro began Ravens training camp on the physically-unable-to-perform list Tuesday. Cousins' troubles began innocently enough. "It started out as a little strep throat, and that got better," he recalled.

City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young will recuse himself from the bottle tax vote because his cousin works for a beverage distributor? ("Councilman leans against bottle tax," June 17.) He's got to be kidding. Does he owe a duty to his cousin's employer or to the citizens that elected him to office? I say the latter, and he should do his duty. Or is this just a screen so he doesn't have to vote? Jim Astrachan, Baltimore

Howard County Superintendent Sydney L. Cousin is expected to present plans this week to the Board of Education on how to improve the struggling Cradlerock School in Columbia. A number of parents have asked that the system reorganize the school, which has been among the lowest-performing in the county and is the only one that uses the K-8 model. The problems at Cradlerock are not attributed to a lack of funding or resources, according to Ellen Flynn Giles, chairwoman of the school board, which will decide the school's fate.