Ellicott Mills

Ellicott Mills Middle School's eighth-grade team leader Rick Marquart and eighth-grade social studies teacher Toni Richardson got together to help students learn about homelessness -- and ended up learning something themselves."

When students in the Howard County after-school program Can-Teen say "please" and "thank you," they scarcely sound as if they were once nagged or scolded into doing so. Instead, their expressions of gratitude appear to be just that, and they understand why such expressions are warranted. Sound strange for a group of more than a dozen teens? Not according to Taurean Washington, the youth director for the Can-Teen program, a county recreation and parks program that teaches leadership skills and etiquette.

ELLICOTT MILLS Middle School PTA has elected its executive board for the 1997-1998 school year.The new president is Steve Pashigian; vice president, Deborrah Tipton; secretary, Colleen Dodd; treasurer, Mary Jo Lamberson; and PTA Council delegates Kim Derise and Ed Sherman.As most parents in the Ellicott City/Elkridge community know, the 58-year-old Ellicott Mills Middle has been listed as in need of renovations for many years, but for a variety of reasons funding has not come through.Last month, Pashigian hit the ground running when he testified at the Board of Education's public hearing on the fiscal 1999 budget.

You have to be in pretty good shape to make it up the myriad stairs leading to the main dining room at the Ellicott Mills Brewing Company. But once there - above the din of the street level bar - you'll be glad you made the effort. The spacious 120-seat area is nicely laid out. That, and the menu, promise the opportunity to enjoy good food and conversation with your companions. This historical building at 8308 Main Street is all brick and stone and hard wood, bespeaking the solid foundations upon which this 19th century mill and railroad town were built.

Kevin Cooch, a sixth-grader at Ellicott Mills Middle School, is already learning the fine art of publicity.He called me recently to report on the results of the carwash his class conducted for the Office of Aging.The 30 students who participated charged $3 for each car they washed. Between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on a beautiful sunny Saturday the middle of last month, the students were busy with pails, soap and rags, and at the end of the day had collected $409.The carwash was held to help fulfill the youngsters' community service requirement for high school graduation.

THE RED brick building that houses Ellicott Mills Middle School will be demolished this month. For 60 years, the school on Montgomery Road has anchored the Ellicott City community.This year, the school celebrated its 60th anniversary -- and its final year.The farewell tribute was organized by Gifted and Talented Program resource teacher Donna Johnson, who is finishing her first year at the school.When she interviewed for the position last year, Principal David Lovewell specified that he wanted the new coordinator to organize a final celebration.

Allison Barnabe is soooooo tired of people asking her what it's like to be a triplet. It's just like being any other kid, she says. Fortunately for her, some of the attention has been diffused lately, now that she and her sisters, Nicole and Corinne, attend school with another set of triplets: Kyle, Dylan and Bryan Ruygrok. The six youngsters, all 12 years old, are seventh-graders at Ellicott Mills Middle School. Last year, said Principal Michael Goins, a third set of triplets, two girls and a boy, also attended the Ellicott City school.

Each weekday afternoon, drivers of the 11 school buses leaving Ellicott Mills Middle School struggle to find a gap in traffic on Route 103 so they can pull onto the highway.Sometimes, assistant principal Sterlind Burke has to walk on to the road and stop traffic so the buses can leave.So when teacher Judith Cephas this fall asked her gifted and talented students to select projects, five eighth-grade boys from Ellicott City knew what they wanted to do. They decided to put their effort into a project that would help the whole community -- getting a traffic light in front of the school.

A Baltimore County girl alleges in a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday ++ that her former teacher at Ellicott Mills Middle School in Ellicott City repeatedly touched her while she was in the sixth grade in 1989.The girl, now 16, is seeking $1.8 million in damages from the teacher, the school's former principal and the county school system in the suit filed in Howard County Circuit Court.The suit states that John Gilbert Reichenbach Jr. of Ellicott City repeatedly touched the girl's breasts and buttocks while in a school classroom between September 1988 and February 1989.

When she heard one girl tell another that she could not sit down at a lunch table, Jessica Downing, 12, a seventh-grader at Ellicott Mills Middle School, immediately stepped in and voiced an objection. "I told her it's just a spot; it doesn't matter," Jessica recalls saying, echoing sentiments she learned in the school's "Words Can Heal" campaign, which discourages put-downs and verbal harassment. "She kind of got mad at me. The other girl said, `Thanks.' It felt good after she said, `Thanks.

In one of the wealthiest counties in the country, students are being confronted with a message: Poverty exists in every community, and students can make a difference. Around Ellicott Mills Middle School recently, the signs were hard to miss as the campus held a walkathon to benefit the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center in Columbia. "No one chooses to be homeless," one sign read on the route around the school. "A homeless shelter is NOT a home. " The Ellicott Mills walkathon is one of the first activities being held in the student-led philanthropy project "Change Matters.

This Spring, Frisco Tap and Brew House in Columbia will open a seven-barrel microbrewery under the name Push Craft Brewing.  Brewing his own beer has always been an ambition of owner Adam Carton; when he designed the restaurant, which is known for its 50 taps , he included space for a brewery. Indeed, its name suggested it was already able to make its own beer. But Carton was waiting for the business, which has been at its new location at 6695 Dobbin Road for a year, to mature.

Maj. Dan Wood was showered with thunderous applause as he rounded every corner of Ellicott Mills Middle School. The Howard County school's technical education teacher, who recently returned home from a stint in Afghanistan, marveled at the sight of students, faculty and staff who lined up Monday on both sides of the school's hallways and, in a ritual usually staged for students departing for high school, formed a gantlet of praise. A member of the Maryland Army National Guard, Wood has taught at the school for nearly 20 years.

The Howard County Capitol Debaters won the Middle School National Policy Debate Championship, held June 18-19, in Dallas. The team of Lime Kiln students Nikita Datta and Jake Smith and the team of Lime Kiln student Simon Zhu and Montessori student Daniel Budai advanced to the finals of the Middle School Policy Debate National Championship. As both teams were from Capitol Debate, they were declared National Co-Champions in...

Among the first things that hip-hop performer Damon Holley showed the assembled students at Ellicott Mills Middle School was that, as in schoolwork, learning about hip-hop requires undivided attention. Hip-hop artists simply go about getting that attention differently. "Every time you hear me say, 'What's the name of the game?' I want you all to say, 'Pay attention!' And then I want you to remain completely quiet," said Holley of Illstyle and Peace Productions, a Philadelphia-based dance company that staged a high-energy performance, "The History of Hip-Hop," at Ellicott Mills on Thursday.

Seven Maryland schools were designated Thursday as national Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence, an award given to those with consistently high performance or a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students who have shown significant improvement. Five of the schools are public, including Eastern Technical High in Baltimore County and Ellicott Mills Middle in Howard County, and two are Catholic. "This is one of the nation's most significant awards presented to public schools," state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick said in a statement.

In an era when new school buildings are becoming common in Howard County, Ellicott Mills Middle School is one of several new facilities, freshly painted, with gleaming glass and the latest equipment. But this school first opened in 1939 as Ellicott City High School. The new structure - reminiscent of an old schoolhouse with white-framed windows and a porch on either side of the entrance - welcomed pupils Aug. 27 on the site where the first building stood for 60 years before being leveled in 1999.

Michelle Grap, a seventh-grader at Ellicott Mills Middle School, gets frustrated when her parents try to help with homework. "My parents will try to explain something to me and I'll be like, `OK, I already know that,'" she said. They just don't realize how hard her schoolwork is, she said. But on Friday, Michelle had a chance to show her father firsthand just how tough her classes can be. David Grap was one of about 120 parents attending a "bring your parent to school" event organized by the school's PTA. He sat in on Michelle's math class, where pupils were learning about slope intercepts.

%HTMLsymbol; %HTMLspecial; ]> ho.ellicottmills20.ART Blue Ribbon for Ellicott Mills Middle School is one of six honored by the state By John-John Williams IV "Ellicott Mills has become one of [Howard County's]...