Fellow Students

Nearly a third of Century's first graduating class marked the end of their high school careers with presentations yesterday showing experiences that enriched their last year at the school. Kathy Ohlhaber, 18, screened The Seven Deadly Sins of High School, which she wrote, cast, directed and edited. Tallulah Pollard, 18, rode her chestnut stallion, Image, to school and talked about how she plans to own and run stables. And Sam Moore, 18, sat at a potter's wheel and crafted bowls from mounds of clay, a hobby that he said helped him relax while taking four Advanced Placement courses this year.

A Frostburg State University student convicted of fatally stabbing another student in 2011 was sentenced Monday to 14 years in prison. Shanee Liggins, at the time a 23-year-old senior business major, stabbed Kortneigh McCoy, 19, at an off-campus party. Witnesses said Liggins threatened another partygoer with a knife and McCoy stepped in to head off the dispute. Liggins pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in December. Her 14-year prison sentence includes anger management treatment and a mental health evaluation, according to court records.

CHICAGO -- Minority students are more likely than whites to study with, dine with and date students from different racial and ethnic groups, according to a nationwide study to be released tomorrow.However, students of color are much more likely than whites to feel excluded from school activities because of their racial or ethnic identity. And they are more likely to report racially based insults or threats made by faculty or fellow students, according to the study conducted by researchers from the Universities of Michigan and Arizona.

The night before Robert Gladden Jr. took his father's gun to Perry Hall High School, he texted a friend about the plan, but begged him to keep it a secret. "I am going to bring a shotgun and 21 shells, ill let your imagination do the rest," the 15-year-old Gladden said in a message sent around 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 26. "And I trust you not to tell anyone about this so please don't. " The friend kept silent, according to newly released investigative documents, and Gladden kept his word.

Name: Keisha Green, 15, of Glen BurnieAccomplishments: Keisha is in the ninth grade at Glen Burnie Senior High School. She plans to try for positions both as a cheerleader and on the track team this fall.She is active in the Junior Volunteer Program of North Arundel Hospital, where she helps to keep up patient morale by sharing magazines and other items, and offering a friendly ear when needed.Keisha represents the ninth grade on the Student Government Association, where her duties include reporting the concerns of fellow students to the SGA, and informing the students of the SGA's decisions.

Name: Iris Crankfield, 16, of HarwoodSchool: Southern High SchoolAccomplishments:Iris is an honor student and a standout in Spanish class. She is popular, and her opinions are respected by both the school administration (which uses her as a sounding board for projects involving the student body) and by her fellow students.Instructors describe her as pleasant, concerned, a good listener, conscientious and someone who has strong opinions.Iris is the president of SHOP, Students Helping Other People, a fund-raising group that works with the communities of southern Anne Arundel County to collect toys and clothes for the needy in the area.

DEAR STUDENTS: Like many of you, I am a member of the first generation in my family to go to college. As a result of the Nazi invasion of Poland and the subsequent Holocaust, my father lost his parents and sister and was deprived of even a high school education. My mother, who at 14 fled with her parents from Austria, was a splendid student even though she didn't know a word of English before arriving in America. All set to enroll in college, her plans were permanently derailed by the death of her father shortly after her high school graduation and by the need for her to find a job to support her mother.

Fellow students, friends and family members yesterday mourned the death of Marc David Levy, a promising painter with an eccentric flair who was killed Friday when a driver fleeing police slammed into his car.Levy, who turned 21 last month, was a senior at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, a school of 1,200 in downtown Baltimore, where he majored in painting.He was driving his Honda Civic when a 1999 Nissan Altima with at least two police cruisers following it ran a red light at East 27th and St. Paul streets and broadsided him.Yesterday, relatives gathered with Levy's parents, Stephen and Miriam, and their other son, Jason, 17, at their Reisterstown home amid oil-on-canvas self-portraits Levy had painted.

Once a month the Joppatowne High Nature Club treks out to a creek a half-mile from the school in the belief that on its muddy bank they can learn how they and others can stem the tide of pollution locally.As they head for the creek, the Foster Branch -- which eventually empties into Chesapeake Bay -- they lug kits filled with small jars, test tubes, nets and charts. Once at water's edge, they go to work, gathering samples to later test for pollutants.As members of the school's Nature Club, the students see their work as taking their concern for the environment beyond purely academic discussion and forging it into action within their community.

Students struggling in tougher courses As a junior at Chesapeake High School, I am not at all surprised to read the article "Teens struggle for a C average" (Dec. 28). Ever since this school year started, many of my fellow students have been falling behind in their studies, failing their courses due to course overload and switching books day to day. Some students have been unable to keep up with this schedule, including myself. What is the county planning on doing about this? It's absolutely appalling to hear that Dr. Eric J. Smith doesn't seem to worry about the drop in averages.

Bob Nobles III plans to be a Santa's helper this year. He will distribute toys and other gifts to young people who come to the Kennedy Krieger Institute's upcoming Festival of Trees. But it won't be the first time that the New Windsor teenager has put a smile on someone else's face. Nobles, a junior at Baltimore's Kennedy Krieger High School, was chosen as the 2012 ambassador for the holiday gala known as Festival of Trees. Nobles, who has Asperger's Syndrome, is used to public appearances.

Gabriella Polsinelli still recalls the heartbreak she felt when her favorite aunt died of breast cancer five years ago. She was a sixth-grader at the time and didn't really understand the disease. But watching her Aunt Maria transform from a vibrant woman to a frail, skinny and sickly one left a lasting impression on young Gabriella. With her aunt's memory still strong, Polsinelli has became a teenage advocate for breast cancer awareness, raising money each year for the cause.

A 17-year-old Annapolis High School student was charged Wednesday with raping another student, after police say he lured her into the nearby woods during school. Police said that Troy Traon Reid of Heritage Court in Annapolis led a fellow student from school property to woods off Riva Road across from the Arundel Olympics Swim Center on Sept. 29, when he sexually assaulted her. Police said Reid made advances toward the girl as they walked, and at one point, she tried to run away, but Reid threw a large stick at her. He knocked her to the ground, where he pinned her and sexually assaulted her. The girl returned to school and reported it to the School Resource Officer.

Students at the University of Virginia and across the region were stunned Monday after a varsity lacrosse player from Cockeysville was found slain in her apartment and a member of the men's team was charged in her murder. Yeardley Love, a 22-year-old senior and graduate of Notre Dame Preparatory School for Girls in Towson, was discovered by a roommate who called police with a report of possible alcohol poisoning. Officers who responded to the 2:30 a.m. call immediately realized "that this young lady was the victim of something far worse," said Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy J. Longo Sr. "There were obvious physical injuries to her body."

Nearly everyone in the hallways and classrooms at North County High School in Glen Burnie knew Walter Brooks Jr. They didn't know him because he was one of the school's top athletes or one of its top students when he graduated last spring. He was neither. Most knew him because of an oversize personality that his friends and family say was matched only by the size of his heart. Brooks, 18, died Wednesday after a brief illness; his parents said they were told by doctors that the cause was swine flu. "Everyone loved Walter," said Andrea Hunt, who had known Brooks since the sixth grade and became best friends with him in high school.

Everything happens for a reason. And in my case, the reason stuff happens is so I can write it down in this weekly column documenting my joyful, unremarkable life. My son signed up in June to take the September LSAT, only to discover that all of the test centers in the Baltimore-Washington area were filled. My husband, whose turn it was to flog the dead horse of preparedness, remarked: "What does this tell you about the type of people who sign up to take the LSAT?" My son replied: "Obviously, they are a group of very uptight, type-A people."

Ridwan Yaseen Tomhe is proud of his culture and his religion, but he knows that his family traditions set him apart from classmates at Boys' Latin School. A first-generation Arab-American and a Muslim, Tomhe doesn't go to parties. He doesn't drink or smoke. And he fasts from dawn to dusk during the holy month of Ramadan. He has enjoyed his time at Boys' Latin, where he is now a senior, an honor student and was one of the football team's captains. But his thoughts often turn to Sept. 11, 2001, a day when he says life changed for him, his family and other Arab-Americans.

Johns Hopkins University students Rex Chao and Robert Harwood Jr. were two young men with promise. One was a passionate violinist who knew he wanted to go to law school. The other, a high school valedictorian, dreamed of public service after graduating this May.Two shots ended one student's life. The other student sits in a Baltimore booking center, facing a murder charge.Mr. Chao, a devoted musician who had just been named chairman of the campus chapter of the College Republicans, lies dead.

BOSTON -- On the Johns Hopkins University campus, university administrators seem to be giving credence to an observation by Abigail Thernstrom, who categorized left-leaning, politically correct institutions of higher education as "an island of repression in a sea of freedom." Instead of functioning as marketplaces of ideas - "to protect the university as a forum for the free expression of ideas," as described in the Hopkins student handbook - universities continue to punish what they categorize as "offensive" speech and behavior that do not conform to the acceptable, liberal views of politics, race or sexuality.