Dare Program

Showing people respect is the theme we grew up with. Respect your parents, your neighbors and yourself. Martin Luther King Jr. had the same idea, except he said we should extend our notion of respect to include the entire nation. He had a dream that all people, regardless of the color of their skin or their religious preference, would be judged only by the content of their character. Martin Luther King Jr. has been dead 27 years, yet we are still fighting to make his dream come true.*On snowy and icy days, school closings and late openings are announced on local radio and television stations, and the school system's central office has its own information phone line.

See the latest summer fashions and help local scholars by attending the Chesapeake Women's Club's annual fashion show from noon to 3 p.m. May 3 at the Gibson Island Country Club.Fashions for all sizes will be provided by Gantos and Sizes Unlimited.Tickets are $20 and include luncheon and the fashion show.Proceeds will benefit the club's scholarship fund.Joan Valenti, club spokeswoman, said the group will award two $500 scholarships; one to a graduating senior from Northeast High School, the other to a senior from Chesapeake High School.

FEELINGS OF nostalgia have been drawing members of the Brooklyn Park High School Alumni Association back to the area to plan and participate in a community activity. The members, along with officers of the county police's Northern District Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education Unit (DARE) and Millennium Digital Media, are sponsoring the fifth annual DARE Day Celebration from noon to 4 p.m. Oct. 29. It will take place on the alumni's old stomping grounds - now the new Brooklyn Park Middle School at 200 Hammonds Lane.

Emily Green received a fitting welcome to the new Annapolis City Hall annex on West Street, a brick surplus federal building on the edge of a Civil War graveyard.Green, the city's civic and neighborhood projects coordinator, called a cab one night after a meeting in the building. The dispatcher asked her where to send the cab."The national cemetery," she told him. He chuckled.While waiting alone in the building, she heard creaks and noises, so she decided to wait outside. Once outside, a bat swooped down from the building at her. That did it. She walked through the cemetery gates and waited by the street.

County police are taking to the woods and footpaths and trails -- at least for the summer.A new two-man bike patrol team has been deployed in Columbia's Town Center, where two recent assaults occurred on pathways, and at a popular Savage swimming hole, where a Glen Burnie man died two weeks ago, Chief James Robey said.Officers Roch DeFrances and Officer Mark Perry make up the unit that department officials say will assist patrol vehicles and // boost police presence in wooded areas that offer good cover for criminals.

Crime may be on the rise all over the nation, the state and the county, but there has been a sharp drop in juvenile crime in Carroll since 1988."The population of the county has been increasing, the amount of adult crime is increasing, but the number of juvenile cases isstill below that of 1988," said Juvenile Master Peter M. Tabatsko.Last year the number of referrals to the juvenile system dropped 21 percent, and the number of cases referred to the juvenile master dropped 12 percent.Under the juvenile justice system, criminal cases against juveniles are referred to the Department of Juvenile Services.

The 40 southwest Baltimore County children gathered yesterday at St. Clement's Church in Lansdowne for basketball, arts and crafts -- and a video depicting a 10-year-old boy being accidentally shot to death by his friend.The video and the discussion it sparked are part of a weeklong day camp sponsored by Baltimore County Police with a curriculum that focuses on drug education and ways to settle disputes without violence.Modeled after similar programs across the country, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)

Parents of elementary and middle school children gathered at Columbia's Merriweather Post Pavilion and expressed concern that their children are not immune to the threat of gangs and drugs in Howard County's schools."

Sometimes, Cpl. William E. Daywalt Jr. of the county police force wonders whether he is getting through to fifth-graders at Arthur Slade Regional Catholic School in his efforts to teach them to say "no" to drugs and violence."

The National Security Agency is donating everything from old computers to file cabinets, and other units at Fort Meade are offering their time and energy for the post's Adopt A School program."