Enoch

On January 8, 2010 ENOCH. Visitation 2140 North Fulton Avenue Wednesday 4 to 8 P.M. Family will receive friends Thursday at First Tabernacle, 1606 Ashland Avenue 10:30 A.M. funeral to follow at 11:00 A.M.

For some 150 major Enoch Pratt Free Library donors, it was a chance to get up close and personal with a literary legend as the Enoch Pratt Society presented its Lifetime Literary Achievement Award to author John Updike. At a reception before the awards dinner, guests had a chance to chat with the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner and, perhaps, get a book personally inscribed by him. The normally hushed library lobby was filled with the rumble of conversation, as Updike warmly greeted many of those who came to honor him. Included in the group: Bob Hillman, event chair; Ginny Adams, and Peggy Heller, event committee members; Cecil E. Flamer, library board president / chair; Myron Oppenheimer, Ed Brody, Dana Reed, Tyson Tildon, Mary Jo Wagandt, Anne Winter West and Mary Baily Weiler, board members; Dr. Carla Hayden, library executive director; Ron Owens, Friends of the Library president; David M. Schwaber, Monarch Rubber Co. president; Sig Shapiro, Samuel Shapiro & Co. CEO; Eddie Brown, Brown Capital Management president; Joan Marshall, Maryland Prepaid College Trust executive director; Julius Westheimer, Ferris Baker Watts managing director; Gilbert Sandler, Abell Foundation consultant; Dee O'Horan, Radisson Hotel Cross Keys corporate sales manager; and Dr. Emile Bendit, Baltimore psychiatrist.

Baltimore's Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum should reopen Oct. 4, the group responsible for making it profitable announced this week. "That's the official goal. That's the date," said Baltimore-based actor and author Mark Redfield, vice president of Poe Baltimore. "Things are coming along. " Tentative plans call for the house to be open weekends until spring 2014, when hours would be expanded. Final details are still being developed, Redfield said, but plans call for a museum that will be similar to what had been available to visitors before the closing of the house in September 2012.

If you didn't get a chance to attend the recent Black and White Party, a fund-raiser for the Enoch Pratt Free Library, you can get a taste of the event at this Baltimore Sun photo gallery. The event, whose theme was "Evening in Paris," was organized by the Pratt Contemporaries, a group of young professional who support the library.  Here's another Pratt event worth attending: this Saturday's Booklovers' Breakfast with Michael Eric Dyson. It will be held at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel, 700 Aliceanna St., from 8:30 a.m. to noon.

If you're a regular attendee at the author appearances at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, you've seen a fair share of geniuses. Junot Diaz and Dinaw Mengestu -- who today received "genius" grants from the MacArthur Foundation -- have appeared in recent years at the Pratt. Diaz entertained a packed auditorium at the 2009 CityLit Festival, and it was gratifying to see so many young faces in the crowd, eager to hear his words. He is best known for " The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," and more recently released " This Is How You Lose Her . " Mengestu, who lives in Washington, appeared at the Pratt in October, 2010, as Gregg Wilhelm of the CityLit Project reminded me. Mengestu's novel, " The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears," was among the books considered by the One Maryland One Book program as it looked for a work that outlined the immigrant experience.

A memorial service for Ernestine Montejo, who had worked at the Enoch Pratt Free Library for 42 years, will be held at 2 p.m. today at the Henry W. Jenkins and Sons funeral establishment, 4905 York Road.Mrs. Montejo, who was 88, died Oct. 8 of a heart ailment at College Manor.A resident of Govans for many years, she lived in the Bowleys Quarters area before moving to the retirement home about six months ago.She retired in 1965 as a secretary in the library's personnel department. During World War II she had worked on a horse-drawn bookmobile and then in the fine arts and film departments.

In Baltimore County Water pressure drops in northwest areas after valve breaks OWINGS MILLS -- A broken valve caused four pumps at a pumping station in Owings Mills to shut down yesterday morning, causing water pressure to drop in some northwest Baltimore County neighborhoods. The valve broke Tuesday night or early yesterday, which caused flooding at the station and the pumps to stop, said Kurt L. Kocher, spokesman for the Baltimore Department of Public Works. Owings Mills and Reisterstown residents may have experienced low water pressure yesterday morning, said Kocher, adding that pressure was back to normal by afternoon.

The Arena Players and WMAR-TV have announced the winners of the Ninth Annual Drama Competition for Black Playwrights.Monalisa DeGross, a secretary in the Office of Children and Youth at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, won first place and $1,000 for her script, "A Relative Stranger."The selection was made from nearly 75 plays submitted.The hour-long production of "A Relative Stranger" will air at 7 p.m. Feb. 23 on Channel 2. It will be re-broadcast at noon on March 10. WMAR-TV is producing the play at its studios in association with the Arena Players.

Patricia Shih performs at Enoch Pratt libraries Singer-songwriter Patricia Shih performs today at three Enoch Pratt libraries. Her family concerts usually focus on a theme - learning and literacy, freedom, multiculturalism or the environment, for example - but for these shows, she'll mix things up a little and present a "best of" compilation that combines her love of books with lyrical messages of tolerance, safety, kindness and generosity. Audience members are encouraged to participate through critical thinking, singing along, sign language and movement.