Custodians

Former Meade girls basketball coach Phil Popielski has been suspended from coaching in Anne Arundel County for two years after it was determined that one of his former players does not legally reside in the Meade school district, sources said yesterday. Popielski resigned Dec. 23 after receiving a five-game suspension from Meade officials for his conduct that resulted in his ejection from a game against Southern-Anne Arundel on Dec. 21. He cited family issues for stepping down. Senior forward LaTanya Eldridge, a four-year player and three-year starter under Popielski, was declared ineligible and suspended 60 days (rest of the season)

Sliding across soapy floors at Kenwood High School in Essex, chief custodian Max Metheny II makes a mental note: Drink water -- later.Metheny, a 15-year veteran of mop-up duty at Baltimore County schools, doesn't have time for thirst. Not when it is up to him and 10 custodians to sponge down grimy walls and scrape wads of gum from floors and desks before 1,800 students return Aug. 30."Everything has to be scrubbed -- the walls, the floors, the furniture and the blinds," he said, race-walking down corridors cluttered with pails of tile sealant and wax, boxes of trashed asbestos tiles, rows of torn-out lockers, even a portable shower for asbestos emergencies.

The accidental author rests in the warmth of a crusty red Ford parked off Park Heights Avenue. The day is nameless and timeless. There is nowhere to go, nothing really to do. Then, old men in older folding chairs tell Leon he's got a visitor.Susan Roth, a white, middle-aged artist from Guilford, is looking for Leon Walter Tillage, a black, 61-year-old custodian from Park Heights. They know each other. In fact, Roth knows Tillage's life story.Using his "fancy" cane, Tillage takes baby steps toward Roth's white Toyota.

The day after Anne Arundel County school officials suspended the head custodian for making incoherent calls about radon gas at Crofton Middle School, an environmental specialist yesterday installed radon-detection devices in the building.Crofton Middle, as it turns out, is the only school in the county system being monitored regularly for radon.Yesterday, Daniel A. La Hart, the schools' environmental program manager, put detection devices called canisters in three locations at the school.

Annie Turner: The day of the funeral service for Annie Turner was incorrectly stated in yesterday's editions. The service will be held at 11 a.m. today at New Shiloh Baptist Church, 2100 N. Monroe St.The Sun regrets the error.Annie Turner, a custodian in the Baltimore public school system for more than 30 years, died of cancer Friday at Maryland General Hospital. The Baltimore resident was 71.Mrs. Turner joined the school system in 1961 and worked at several schools, most recently at Edmondson Westside High School, from which she retired in 1994.

The principal didn't like what he saw: a custodian frequently talking to an eighth-grade girl in the hallway, helping her sort out emotional troubles.Twice, he told Richard Gray to stop."I said, 'Richard, you must be careful. We can't cross the line,' " recalls Michael Zajdel, former principal of Parkville Middle School."Not because I thought he was doing anything wrong, but because I wanted to protect him, and both of them. I didn't want her to become too dependent on him. I didn't want him to be drawn into something he didn't have the background in."

Clutching a small stuffed tiger, a 16-year-old girl testified yesterday that a man forced her and her younger sister into the woods behind Howard County's central library in Columbia, ripped off her clothes and raped her."I said 'Why are you doing this?' " the Columbia 11th-grader testified in Carroll County Circuit Court. "I started screaming out really loud and he took his hand and covered my mouth."As the girl spoke, she stared directly at the prosecutor, almost never looking at the man accused of raping her -- Timothy Bryan Chase.

A former Meade Senior High School custodian will likely be sentenced to probation next month after he pleaded guilty in Anne Arundel Circuit Court this week to having sex with a 15-year-old student in the school's auditorium.Mortimer M. Peters, 37, of the 400 block of Starwood Drive in Glen Burnie admitted to Judge Eugene M. Lerner that he had sex with the girl Feb. 20.The encounter was consensual, according to prosecutors, but is considered a third-degree sex offense because the girl was under age 16 and Peters was more than four years older than the girl.

Todd Hrico raised his arms in a wide embrace, opened his mouth and filled the classroom with full, rich sound.Joining his voice were the voices of the Howard County Public School System Employees' Chorus, a group of teachers, administrators, custodians, secretaries, principals and aides -- and some of their spouses."

The battery conviction of Harford County Councilman Mark S. Decker, stemming from a hallway encounter with a female custodian, was changed at sentencing yesterday by a Baltimore County judge to probation before judgment.Circuit Judge John Grason Turnbull II noted that the councilman had been subjected to more negative publicity than someone not in public office would have attracted in such a case.Mr. Decker was found guilty of battery but acquitted of a sex-offense charge last month after a two-day trial.