Dandridge

Tonight at 7:30, in the recently upgraded Graham Auditorium (the sound system has been thoroughly revamped), the Walters Art Museum kicks off its new film series, "Walters Live: At the Movies," with a rare CinemaScope screening of the sizzling 1954 hit Carmen Jones, a blend of Bizet's Carmen, American musical comedy and film noir. When Dorothy Dandridge sashays on screen in the title role, a sneering co-worker calls her a "hip-swinging floozy." Actually, she swings every part of her body.

On the eve of its most fiercely contested election in years, the Baltimore Teachers Union has arrived at a crossroads.The city's teachers must choose Thursday from among three candidates for president, including the incumbent of 17 years.Unlike many past sedate campaigns, this one has been marked by angry denunciations after disclosures that the BTU's longtime leaders benefited from interest-free salary advances and lucrative compensation without the knowledge of most members.Meanwhile, many of the BTU's 5,600 teachers feel that their jobs are threatened by dwindling city resources, school violence, state school reform and declining enrollment.

Members of the Baltimore Teachers Union head to the polls today to elect a president and other officers, one day after an appeals court rejected a former BTU president's attempt to stop the election.Former president Irene B. Dandridge, who claims she was improperly excluded as a candidate, said she isn't giving up her fight to reclaim the job she held for 17 years, despite yesterday's ruling."We do have some options," Dandridge said. "One is to go to the international union [American Federation of Teachers]

It must be an unwritten axiom: When you meet people who are considered larger than life, you expect them to be physically larger than what they are. So I was taken aback when Gloria Richardson Dandridge opened the door to her Manhattan apartment for me in October. She was still slender, as slender as I'd seen her in those pictures taken back during the 1960s, when she led civil rights demonstrations in Cambridge and served as chairwoman of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee, better known as CNAC.

Baltimore Teachers Union members voted yesterday to keep Marietta English as president and elected executive board members backed by her and Lorretta Johnson, who heads the BTU teacher aide chapter."

Two years after her ouster as the longtime president of the Baltimore Teachers Union, Irene B. Dandridge is attempting to make a comeback. She's trying to get on the ballot for Tuesday's union election.Dandridge, who has filed suit to block the election and is in the midst of a petition drive to sanction her candidacy, is hoping to regain a post she held for 17 years. She lost it in 1996 after accusations that she mismanaged the finances of the city's largest municipal union.Next week's election is a crowded contest, with five candidates on the ballot for the job of representing the city's 7,200 teachers.

Only a week after a change of leadership in the Baltimore Teachers Union, supporters of ousted president Irene B. Dandridge are fighting her successor's efforts to take charge of the labor group.Their resistance to the change comes as newly elected President Marcia Brown struggles with deepening union financial troubles, including a budget deficit that is projected to reach $300,000 by the end of June."I went into this naive," Brown said in an interview this week. "This would have been believable to me if we were not a union of teachers.

On May 6, 2007, WILLIAM A. TUERKE, III, 75, former president of Tuerkes-Beckers, Inc., at the Odyssey Hospice in Las Vegas, NV. Family members were with him at his passing. He is survived by four sons, William A. Tuerke, IV of Baltimore, MD, John Tuerke of W. Friendship, MD, Timothy Tuerke of Las Vegas, NV and Thomas Tuerke of Baltimore, MD and four daughters, Susan Dell of Hedgesville, WV, Cheryl Kouba of Mamer in Luxembourg, Elizabeth Tuerke-Bohle of Dayton, OH and Deborah Tuerke Force of Baltimore, MD. He is also survived by a step-mother Audrey O'Meara of N. Palm Beach, FL, two step-sons, Clay Coatney of Reston, VA and Raymond Steele of Strasberg, VA and two step-daughters, Kim Walker of Dandridge, TN and Georgana Baker of Charlestown, WV as well as 17 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.

In an attempt to sidestep potential legal hurdles, Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke yesterday modified his provocative proposal to give teachers a greater say in school policy, saying he would designate the head of the teachers union to a nonvoting seat on the school board.Giving Baltimore Teachers Union President Irene B. Dandridge ex-officio rather than full voting status could be done by a resolution of the board and would avoid legal issues raised last week after he proposed the unusual idea, the mayor said.

LOOK, CHILDREN. See the teachers. See the teachers be selfish. See them ignore the rules. See the teachers make a mockery of the democratic election they held to choose a new president of their union.It is outrageous for board members of the Baltimore Teachers Union who remain loyal to ousted BTU President Irene B. Dandridge to attempt to undercut the authority of her elected successor. The BTU membership has spoken. It does not want Ms. Dandridge, whose tenure was tainted by disclosures in The Sun that she and other top BTU officials were paid far more than their members, received large interest-free salary advances from the deficit-ridden union and hired relatives as full-time employees.