Daughter

Members of the Governor William Paca Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution – from left, Emily Andrews, Dotty Meyer, Barbara Adams and Ginny Carlin – accept a proclamation from Harford County Executive Mr. David Craig proclaiming Constitution Week in Harford County the week of Sept. 17 to 23. This is the 225th anniversary of the Constitution. In 1955 DAR petitioned Congress to set aside the week of September 17-23 to honor the Constitution and the petition was signed into law by President Eisenhower the next year.

Jessica Harris never ran track before she arrived at Mount de Sales, but the junior has run the third-fastest time in the country by a high school girl in two events this winter - 800 meters (2:14.14) and 500 meters (1:16.24). Her 800-meter time ranked No. 1 when she ran it in December. An All-Metro first-team selection last spring in track and field, Harris holds three individual school records in indoor track and has helped set three relay records. She's the defending Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland champion in the 800 meters both indoors and outdoors.

Shirley and Gerald Surrett of Bel Air, announce the engagement of their daughter, Hillary Fifer, to Daniel Houtz, son of Catherine Houtz of Hampstead, and Victor Houtz of Stroudsburg, Pa. Fifer is also the daughter of the late Dr. Robert Fifer. Fifer is a 2002 graduate of Bel Air High School. She earned a bachelor of arts in communication from Messiah College in 2006 and is a marketing specialist for Harford County Public Library. Houtz is a 2003 graduate of C. Milton Wright High School.

Rose Faro Ponder, a retired Notre Dame Preparatory School food service manager who won blue ribbons at the Maryland State Fair for her baking, died of pneumonia Friday at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center. She was 88 and lived in Bel Air. Rose Faro was born on Fremont Avenue and raised near Gwynns Falls. She attended Baltimore City public schools. Her daughter, Deborah Ponder Mance of Street, said she was the youngest of seven children of Sicilian immigrants who settled in Baltimore in the early 1900s.

Gretchen Crews, a retired librarian, teacher and club manager, died Dec. 27 at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center of injuries sustained in a fall at her Towson home. She was 83. Born Gretchen Matthews in Baltimore and raised in Wyman Park, she was the daughter of Howard Matthews, a state auditor, and his wife Gretchen, a home economics teacher and homemaker. She attended Margaret Brent School in Charles Village and was a 1947 Eastern High School graduate. She earned an English degree at Goucher College and later received a library science degree at Towson University She taught English in the city public school system and later was a librarian, both in the school system and at the old Bay College at Howard and Centre streets.

Calvert Hall College High School is mourning the loss of Josephine Grace Gay, 7, a victim in the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting whose father attended the Catholic preparatory school in Towson. Robert Gay graduated from Calvert Hall in 1978. In an email to alumni and others, school President Thomas Zoppo said Josephine died in Friday's massacre, three days after her seventh birthday. "Our particular thoughts and prayers go out to the Newtown ... community, most especially Bob, his wife Michele, and daughters Sophia and Marie," Zoppo said in a statement.

When Oprah Winfrey likes something, she makes no bones about letting the entire world know. Famous for being an ardent dog lover, the TV and magazine queen gave her blessing again this year for the art of a Howard County pet-portrait studio in the December issue of O the Oprah Magazine on her annual list of recommended gifts. Wagging Tail Portraits received Winfrey's nod for the second consecutive year, but with a twist: It was Natalie Kendall who created the digital art for the new line of greeting cards made from mom Sherry Kendall's hand-painted portraits, scoring the mother-daughter duo a shared spot on Oprah's Favorite Things 2012.

Nobody believed Liu Fang, born with half a heart and abandoned in a village west of Beijing, would survive long after being adopted by a Baltimore County family. Even the Bartlinskis, deeply religious Catholics, expected the girl's lungs would fail even if her heart could be repaired. Two years later, as the 5-year-old girl awaits a cardiac transplant, her parents, a Catonsville school and the family's parish are literally praying for a miracle. She is awaiting the procedure at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

The boyfriend charged with killing his 25-year-old girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter, whose bodies were found in an apartment in Parkville in June 2011, plead guilty in Baltimore County court Monday evening. Brian Lamont Eggleston Jr., 29, plead guilty to two counts of murder in the deaths of Alicia Lee Avery and her daughter Darry'el Parker, who were found shot to death inside the Welcome Inn, where they had been staying under police protection as a result of an unrelated murder in Baltimore.

Betty B. Hill, a homemaker and orphanage volunteer, died of a pulmonary embolism Oct. 23 at St. Joseph Medical Center. The former Roland Park resident was 84. Born Betty Jane Bearry in Dundalk, she was the daughter of an electrician and a homemaker. She was a 1944 graduate of Sparrows Point High School. She attended the University of Maryland, College Park and what is now Towson University. While working at a summer job at Ocean City , she met her future husband, Samuel Dennis Hill, a lifeguard who was later an attorney practicing in Towson.