Dawn

The federal government's scheduled announcement today to spend $50 million on reconfiguring the Lafayette Courts project near the main Post Office represents a new dawn in Baltimore's -- and the nation's -- efforts to overhaul troubled public housing complexes.Instead of merely trying to preserve the failed status quo, the government is finally opting for alternatives.If everything goes as planned, demolition of five of the Lafayette project's high-rises should be going on by next fall. The cramped and outdated high-rise units would then be replaced with garden apartments more suitable for family living.

The pre-dawn was cool enough for a good flannel shirt, the breeze a whisper from west of north, and rafts of mallards paddled out of the way as the boat idled through the darkness out of the creek channel.Ahead, in the river proper, the running lights of a handful of other powerboats could be seen, running fast toward Chesapeake Bay, their skippers and crews hot for the first licks of rockfish season.But while the others ran for open water, the boat was headed into the Severn River, holding to about 12 knots and dodging crab pot floats and debris washed downstream by heavy wind and rain a couple of days before.

Dr. Dawn F. Audi-Racke, a Towson pediatrician, died of cancer Monday at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. The Sparks resident was 42. Born Dawn Freida Audi in Johnstown, Pa., she earned a bachelor's degree in biology at Haverford College. While a student there, she met Dr. Frederick K. Racke, a Johns Hopkins Hospital pathologist. They married in 1987. She earned her medical degree at Pennsylvania State University at Hershey and did her residency at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland.

Dawn L. Goodmuth, a licensed practical nurse, died of respiratory failure Aug. 17 at her home in Selbyville, Del. She was 67. Born and raised in Baltimore, Ms. Goodmuth trained at South Baltimore General Hospital, now known as Harbor Hospital. She worked at the former Church Home and Hospital and at several nursing homes in Baltimore. After moving to Selbyville in the early 1990s, she continued nursing, doing private-duty work with senior citizens. While raising her family in Baltimore, she enjoyed competitive roller skating and bowling, and was an accomplished dancer who taught at the Doralynn Dance Studio in Parkville.

A task force of more than 200 police officers from Baltimore City and Baltimore County staged a pre-dawn attack yesterday on a cocaine-trafficking organization they dubbed the "Black Bag Boys," with 19 raids that produced nine arrests and an assortment of drugs, handguns and cash, authorities said. Seventeen of the raids occurred in the city, and two in the county, beginning about 6:15 a.m. Seized, according to police, were eight guns; more than half a pound of marijuana; 575 tiny plastic bags of crack cocaine, with another 4 ounces in solid form; $11,500 in cash; and three vehicles.

Last year's 28 Days Later turned a corner for zombie films, one the new remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead exploits to great advantage. No longer do the walking dread lurch around like cars forever stuck in first gear. No more does the camera linger on the decaying corpses, watching in lurid fascination as body parts fall to the ground. With luck, never again will the grotesqueries of a zombie movie be the only thing audiences remember. Nope, the zombies of the new millennium can move.

TO A GENERATION that tuned in for the dawning of local TV programming, Rolf Hertsgaard will be remembered as the first of the great Baltimore news anchors, when local news anchors still mattered. He was Jerry Turner before Jerry arrived and changed the business. Hertsgaard was the first big newsman as Master of Ceremonies, ushering in a bright new electronic day that seemed as if it might glisten forever. Three decades after he was ushered off-screen because he was deemed not amusing enough, Hertsgaard died last week, at 81. That he was still vividly remembered is a testament to his earnest efforts over a 15-year career on WBAL-TV, and to the promise that television news once seemed to hold.

Dawn Hopper missed what was supposed to be her first date with Jeff Harman. Dawn's sister and Jeff's cousin set them up on a blind date in July 2000. But Dawn, just back from a trip to Spain, decided not to go to a gathering at her sister's house where Jeff was waiting. "I thought it was just more of a casual thing . . . and I didn't go," she says. "He was a little upset and he didn't call me for a few weeks." But Jeff finally did call, and they went out that day, with great success.

Cinderella and her prince were falling in love nightly on the stage of a 1996 Ice Capades tour of China as Dawn Latona and Chris Conte began their own love story off the ice. Roles as the Spanish Princess ("There's some casting," says the fair, blue-eyed Dawn) and Buttons, Cinderella's comic sidekick ("I played the village idiot," jokes Chris) reunited the two, who had known each other as children when they were skating competitively in Buffalo, N.Y. Back then, "I thought she was cute," says Chris, but "she would never talk to me."

All Joan LeFaivre's praying is paying off.Since Ms. LeFaivre became president of Dawn's Office Supply Co. in the beginning of July, the Charles Village business has had the best two months of sales in the company's 43-year history.That's in a sluggish economy and during two of the traditionally worst months of the year for the office supply company, which thrives on the school and business trade for its products."I really do pray about this business," said Ms. LeFaivre, her gold cross swinging gently on a chain around her neck.